Check out Emmett Graham’s Artwork

Today we’d like to introduce you to Emmett Graham.

Emmett, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
When I was in high school I became interested in art from a class I took as an elective. The class was painting and sculpting. When I graduated from high school I went to college for art. After my first year I stopped and enlisted in the in the navy and got out and then later I joined the Marine Corps shortly after 9/11 , I served for nine years in the Marine Corps when I was medically discharged after being diagnosed with M.S. after coming back from Iraq. When I was discharged my wife and I moved to Glendale, Az. where I earned my degree in Aeronautics with a minor in management from Embry Riddle. At this time I felt something was missing, nothing I did seemed to satisfy me. My wife knowing I enjoyed art when I was younger, bought me a drawing/painting program for the computer for Christmas in 2012. That is when my passion for art came back to life again. I started to take basic drawing and painting classes for a year, then started to take master art classes at Scottsdale Artists School and continued taking master art classes at Rees Atelier academy for 3 years. Now I am continuing my education and earning my second degree for a BFA in painting at ASU. My goal if possible is to find a career in painting and hopefully be able to help others the way that creating art has helped me.

We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
The art I do is realism, with oil paint. I get my inspiration for creating my paintings from my own culture and what I have learned and experienced in my life. I take Ideas and concepts I have, put things together to create those ideas and concepts as real as possible and start to paint them. The reason I started to paint skulls is for several reasons, to learn value transition across a rounded surface and the shape of the human head in different positions, to inspire others to go after their dreams while they are here, to express beliefs of ancient societies, and lastly to help me in my upcoming series of paintings creating realistic images of ancient societies’ cultural and religious beliefs. To take their stories and make the images as real as possible. The first ancient society I will be focusing on are the Aztecs.

Have things improved for artists? What should cities do to empower artists?
The conditions for artists today, is they have access to technology to help them enhance their creativity as well as to do sketch ups, drawings and color schemes without having to waste materials. They also can take their painting or drawing put in a digital program to enhance it and clean it up in Photoshop and get it printed. With that being said it has become more competitive and difficult for artists, because of the technology and how fast it is moving and how accessible it is. The internet has plenty of video tutorials for people to go and learn about how to, or step by step videos and online classes/courses that people can take to be an artist. The one saving grace that technology cannot teach is creativity that comes within a person. A person can get inspiration, a concept from looking at something or even Idea to do something, though the creativeness of making it comes with in. The way the city can encourage and help art and artists besides First and Third Fridays in downtown phoenix, is provide ways for artists to be seen in places, other than industrial areas, that have heavy foot traffic on an everyday basis to help artists become known, maybe have a call to artists to have their art displayed at an event that is happening in the area. Possibly this is happening all ready and I’m not aware of it, though definitely more advertising on social media about artists displaying their work to help get recognition, not only in the city and the state, also nationwide and internationally as well.

Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
People can see my artwork on Instagram. They can also go to my Facebook page. I have recently been in a gallery and my work was well received so much so that one of my pieces was stolen, it was called the “King of Diamonds”, and I will also be in a one night art show on Sept 6th at the Pressroom in Phoenix, AZ with Rawartists.org. I am submitting some pieces to the West Valley Art Council and waiting to see if I will be in their showing on Sept 7th. People can contact me and support my work by emailing me, Direct Message me on Instagram, or my Facebook page, by requesting a piece they would like me to paint, buy an original piece I have created or request a print of one of my original pieces. They can also let me know about galleries I could contact here in Arizona, another state or even another country to have my pieces possibly be displayed. They could also introduce me to those who might be interested in showing my pieces and spread the word about me for others to possibly purchase my artwork or even commission me for an art piece either here in Arizona, another state or another country.

Contact Info:

• Email: emmettgrahamart@gmail.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/emmettgrahamart (@emmettgrahamart)
• Facebook: facebook.com/emmett.graham.3551 (Face book page is Emmett Graham Art)

Image Credit:
Emmett Graham

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