Annie Graham
Annie Graham was born in 1981 in Cleveland, Ohio, and grew up in a family of artists and builders. She studied textile design at the Rhode Island School of Design and worked for 15 years as a textile designer in the interiors industry. This career took her to Portugal, where she has lived since 2013.
Surfing and beach life in a small town by the sea brought Annie’s awareness to the overwhelming problem of marine plastic pollution. She was inspired to start using trash as an art material. She found that plastic trash has many of the material properties she is interested in, as well as holding meaning about our consumerist society.
Annie creates mixed media collages highlighting plastic trash. She is interested in layered surfaces activated with transparent, reflective, and fragmented materials, properties she finds easily in trash. Her methods are drawn from her background in textiles, her love/hate relationship with painting, and her natural proclivity for collage.
Annie currently lives and works in Baleal, Portugal. She has exhibited her work in Lisbon and around Portugal, most recently in the Museu da Renda de Bilros in Peniche. She has attended the PADA Studios Residency in Barreiro, Portugal.
