Allan Graham

Who is Allan Graham?

Allan Graham, who sometimes uses the name Toadhouse, is a contemporary American artist based in New Mexico. His work includes sculpture, painting, poetry, and video.

Graham studied at the San Francisco Art Institute and San Jose State University before moving to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of New Mexico.

His early paintings were wall-like grids which, in the mid to late 1970s, developed into more open compositions with sweeping arcs and herring-bone patterns.

In 1983, he abandoned conventionally shaped canvases in favor of eccentric forms and began leaving the stretcher bars exposed. By the mid-80’s this had evolved into a series of painting-sculpture hybrids, using wood, canvas, newspaper and book pages, which resembled certain African works. These were followed by near-monochromes on bent canvasses, sculptures made of books and irregularly circular paintings using book pages from sources such as a Navajo Bible and Dante's Inferno.

In the 90's, he painted a series called "Cave of Generation", which consisted of steps leading into large monochrome and two-tone paintings.