Laura Graham is a Scottish artist, film-maker and lawyer. Training first as a solicitor in Scotland, she moved to Northern Ireland in the early 1990’s. Working in Belfast catalysed her interest in human rights, contested and conflicted land, memory, and the effect of the trans-generational transmission of trauma. It also prompted her journey into deep self-reflection through meditation and esoteric philosophical and spiritual practices.

In 2005 she took the leap to follow a career in art, weaving these interests into narratives designed to question social responsibility, human dignity and self-reflection of historic and contemporary inequalities.

Her work takes in painting, film, installation and sculpture, each time the choice is dictated by concept and subject matter.

Awarded an opportunity to undertake an intercalated international degree during her time at University of Ulster, Belfast School of Art, Graham chose to spend a year at COFA, UNSW, Sydney, Australia, allowing her space to explore the traumatic history and culture of Indigenous Australians at the Nura Gilli Institute, learning through oral histories in Redfern (inner Sydney) and having the opportunity to meet the indigenous Papunya artists of central Australia through the work of COFA academics.

These experiences influenced her work in Northern Ireland and Scotland. Graham’s seminal work, ’Soul Murder’, explored the treatment of women by society and the law during the Scottish witch hunts of the 17th and 18th century. Using a mixture of film, performance art and sculpture, she placed the viewer in an immersive experience of both jury and defendant, presenting an opportunity to reflect on the ongoing effect this unpalatable past has had on our cultural memory.

Continuing to explore the history of injustice by looking at the cross cultural aspects of law, religion, social mores and identification, through which she attempts to excavate the hidden, largely ignored, assumptions that unconsciously mould us, her challenge is in the interface between these constraining systems and the personal, and how to visually represent these through her art.

With the experience of using film for its immersive qualities as part of her art practice, Graham moved on to producing and directing a number of independent films concentrating on her areas of interest. The documentary "Outcaste: The House that Carol Built" follows the journey of three individuals through the Himalayas, as they experience physical, emotional and spiritual trials. Their primary focus on their personal growth throws light on assumptions around the abolition of the caste system, its enduring hold on the people of India, and the contradictions implicit in Hinduism and Buddhism.

Graham believes that art should illicit a physical response in the viewer, an experience that can be understood and felt without reduction to writing. She considers that art, in its many forms, has the potential to stand as an admonition to law, society, science and government and it does not need to be prescriptive. However, like all experience, it ultimately becomes part of us and by that process we are all better able to question things, for knowing how and what to question is far more important than knowing the right answer.

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Graham wants the viewer, in engaging with her art, to begin this process of questioning our nations past responsibilities. She intends that the viewer should want to shine a light on our society, to feel the need to elicit change, particularly in those of our society who are not inclusive.

Commissions

Painting commissions Belfast, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Sydney and Hong Kong

Branding Art work for ‘Dancing Shoes- The George Best Story’

Portrait commissions, UK and Ireland

Film Work

IMBOLC 16 min short film (written and directed by Laura Graham)

Finalist in International section, Canberra Short Film Festival, ACT Australia

Finalist in international short film section Massachusetts Independent Film Festival, Boston, Mass, USA

OUTCASTE- The House that Carol Built, Feature Documentary, multi award winning

Feature Documentary- The Skids Revolution 2020

Present Membership of Professional Bodies

1994 Admitted as a Member of the Law Society of Northern Ireland

1991 Admitted as a Member of the Law Society of Scotland

Residencies

Tyrone Guthrie Centre- 2 week residencies- February 2010, June 2010 and November 2010

2011/2012 Digital Arts Studios, Queen St Belfast

2011/2012 Artist in Residence, Linen Hall Library, Belfast