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Brandon Graham ~ Illinois |
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| Collaboration bookwork with Joseph Lappie as Chimera Press Six short graphic chapbooks 'Zine bookworks |
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Cornucopia 3.5 x 4.24" closed, 13.75 x 8.25" open. Single sheet folded to form eight pages. Text and color photographs digitally printed. Brandon Graham: "Cornucopia combines found images of Thanksgiving meals with two textural narratives. One narrative is original fiction, the other is a collection of statistics. The combination … comments on the systemic effects of America's food industry, culture, and habits. Don't forget to unfold it and look inside for a tasty treat." |
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Tear Here 5.5 x 6.5"; 38 pages. Designed in InDesign, and printed on a Color Laser Jet on linen-textured paper. Some pages altered with a perforator and then sewn on a sewing machine. Bound with a chain-stitch, but not cased in so that the spine is exposed. The statistics are accurate, the narrative fictional. Written, designed, and produced by Graham. An understated but unsubtle lament of the plight of US forces in the present Iraq War, especially the increase in amputees at "twice the rate of past U.S. conflicts." Brandon Graham: "Tear Here started with taking a set of military uniforms, cutting off the arms and legs, and lashing them back together with red thread. Then I took digital images, tore at the seams, and visually documented the seams ripping apart…. "Using the structural vocabulary of the codex, Tear Here explores the ways in which the conflict in Iraq tears away at the bodies and the lives of those soldiers who serve in the U.S. military." |
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| Inexpensive 'zine types of bookwork | |
Bitches 3.5 x 4.24" closed, 14 x 8.5 open; 8 pages. Single sheet folded. Brandon Graham: "A 'zine that addresses misogynistic attitudes in an ironic, first person voice."
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Irresistible 3.25 x 4"; 8 pages. Opens to 8 x 13". Formed from one folded legal-sized sheet of paper. Created in InDesign. Printed on a color laser printer. Brandon Graham: "Irresistible combines my interest in the printed multiple as a means for delivering an 'art experience' to viewers in non-gallery settings, the use of first person short fiction to engage a reader, and my concerns over the political direction our country has been moving and continues to move. "More specifically Irresistible is a reaction to the Bush administration's slow bludgeoning drumbeat for war with Iran. A drum beat that echoes the rhythms of the argument that rushed us into war with an argument that was repeated again this week [January 2008] in the President's State of the Union Address." |
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Tolerance 3.5 x 4". 8 pages. The subject is, not surprisingly, intolerance - specifically, intolerance of homosexuals. Irony is alive and well. Brandon Graham: "Tolerance is single sheet folded into a 'zine format book. Its content is a reflection of my ongoing attempt to use a first person unreliable narrator voice to create flash fiction that address large social issues but puts them on a human scale. The form is a reflection of my interest in the printed multiple as a means of delivering an 'art experience' to viewers where they live and work." |
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Brandon Graham: "I am an artist living and working in Chicago, IL. In recent years my work has focused on the place where artists' books overlap with alternative literary press projects. This direction was shaped by the philosophy professed by the Fluxus artists, especially related to the Democratic Multiple; as well as a belief that artists' books too often hold the text to a lower standard than all other elements of making and producing books. This is a lost opportunity. I have tried to balance text, typography, visual narratives and structural design in such a way that each element serves the main thesis of the artwork. I find this to be a project that is rewarding and endlessly challenging." The Least Painful Compromise series: Six short graphic chapbooks that form a larger project called "The Least Painful Compromise." Experimental literature presenting multiple layers of an individual life. Each chapbook is 5.8 x 9" with 24 pages. Each is off-set printed with original photographs and text by Graham and has a saddle stitch binding. |
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The Decision Brandon Graham: "In The Decision young Stevie is asked to choose between time with his mother or time with his father. The visual narrative helps to set the psychological tone of the piece as well as contribute information not contained in the written text."
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The Dinner Party
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The Eulogy Brandon Graham: "This chapbook gives voice to a family that is mourning the death of a teenager. The father Steve, the Mother Savannah, and the twin sister Ella, all explain their feelings and understanding of the death of Nora. Finally Nora is able to try to explain her reasons for taking her own life."
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The Gutting 5.8 x 9"; 24 pages. Off-set printed with original photographs and text by Graham. Pamphlet fold with a saddle stitch binding. Experimental literature presenting multiple layers of an individual life: how childhood experience through the power of confused and confusing memory shapes the adult. A web as murky as the fish guts of the story. Brandon Graham: "[The Gutting] combines original short fiction with a graphic short story. This combination of elements is a realization of my interest in exploring the place where experimental short fiction, graphic novels, and artists' books run together. "The piece explores the ways in which the traumatic events that transpired during a childhood fishing trip … continue to have repercussions in [an] adult relationship. Part of the conceit for the design is that the fragmented and unreliable way in which memory works lends itself to a layered and fractured narrative. To that end the graphic portion underscores the central metaphor in the short fiction but is recounted simultaneously to the 'fictional now.'" |
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Nora93 Brandon Graham: "Nora93 ... is a first person monologue told by Nora, a 15 year old protagonist, in which she reveals her perception of the complex web of relationships within her immediate family. The visual narrative helps to set a dissonant emotional tone and serves as a flashback to the textural narrative."
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The Visit Brandon Graham: "This project combines first person point-of-view visuals with a monologue, as young adult Steve visits his girlfriend's father who is in a coma. The terse one-sided conversation reveals the anger and pain that lay hidden under the surface of Steve personae as well as between Savannah and her sick father."
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The Least Painful Compromise Series Six chapbooks: $100 |
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Page last update:12.28.09
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