Jaz Graf: The Ghost Left a Bag of Uncooked Rice for Me

November 3-November 26, 2023
First Friday Opening Reception: Friday, November 3, 6:00-9:00 pm

Practice Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of The Ghost Left a Bag of Uncooked Rice for Me, an exhibition of new work by paper, print, and book artist Jaz Graf. We will celebrate with the artist during November’s First Friday opening, from 6:00-9:00 pm on Friday, November 3. 

Artist’s Statement

Over time, my practice has become more conscious of itself. Varying degrees of interest in and rejection of aesthetics, kitsch, process, refinement, obscurity, subversiveness are aspects of an internal and collective conversation that I have through making. This recent play of works represent the development of an ongoing personal mythology. The exhibit’s title references a Thai language mnemonic. I explore how materials collide and synthesize to convey embodied and metaphorical stories. Thai mulberry, a beloved papermaking fiber, is my storytelling ancestor, offering remedy, rumination and reverence. I draw inspiration from textiles, palm leaf manuscripts, and the design motifs of the Southeast Asian landscape. Traditions of cremation, slash and burn agriculture, enunciate enigmatic tones of corporeal experience and metaphysical possibility. The nature of impermanence as cyclical, self-reflexive. Ash becomes evidence of a threshold crossed. Through practice and material I continue to conjugate being and alterity.

Artist’s BIO

Jaz Graf is a paper, print & book artist with a studio practice at Gallery Aferro in Newark, NJ. Graf is the recipient of a West Bay View Foundation Fellowship (Dieu Donné, NY), Salzberg Book Arts Residency (Jaffe Center at FAU (FL), Creative Catalyst Grant (Newark, NJ), Studio Award (Women’s Studio Workshop, NY), and Civil Society Institute Fellow (Vermont Studio Center), among others. Her work has been featured at the Art on Paper Fair (NY), Newark Museum (NJ), Seager/Gray Gallery (CA), Dieu Donné (NY), South Bend Museum (IN), in AM New York News, The Jersey Journal and on NJ PBS television network. Graf holds a Master of Arts degree in Studio Art Printmaking from the University of Notre Dame and a Master of Fine Arts in Print from the University of Iowa.

Connect:
www.jazgraf.com
@jazgraf