mixed greens | magazine | Susan Graham

Photographer, sculptor, and filmmaker Susan Graham creates deeply personal art filled with what she describes as “allusions to the culture and landscape of the American Midwest where I grew up: photographs and film loops depict tornadoes, guns made of sugar or porcelain are encased in candy-colored cases, and photographs and videos of empty rooms are combined with scenes of empty malls, hotel rooms, and big skies.”

Here she talks with Mixed Greens about the ubiquity of dream imagery in her work, the intricate interplay of ostensibly distinct creative disciplines, and what some of her art tastes like.

Mixed Greens: The dreamlike imagery in much of your work, with familiar objects appearing again and again in various landscapes, suggests a debt to Surrealism, with its emphasis on the subconscious, and the power of totems and icons. Do you think of your work as residing in, or especially influenced by, any particular school, or genre?

Susan Graham: While I’m aware of the surrealist aspects of my work, I also think that sometimes minimalism factors in (in the way I’ve sometimes arranged installations) and something called “pictorialism” in the photographs.

MG: You once said that much of your work has to do with the fears—fear of guns, fear of tornadoes—that “contribute to insomniac musings.” Do you harbor any deep-seated fears that you haven’t yet addressed, or haven’t been able to address, in your art?

SG: My work is starting to deal with dreams themselves, as well as fears. There are other things that are not exactly fears that I haven’t figured out how to address, wacky stuff I want to weave in with the rest, but I haven’t figured out how. So I don’t talk about those things until I can figure out how to use them.