This body of work navigates the mythological concept of The Open Road and responds to the vast, unfamiliar landscapes of the American Southwest. Graham investigates the idea of the American Dream—its commercial construction and the notion of The Land of the Free—and the commodification of the landscape. She explores spaces of circulation, communication, and mass consumption, discovering iconographic symbols such as the road sign as both a literal and symbolic marker of direction and meaning.

Graham investigates American cultural imagery’s ability evoke a deep sense of nostalgia for places never visited. Symbols rooted in American identity become globally recognisable, reflecting how unfamiliar spaces can feel familiar through the embedding of a shared cultural memory and imagination.

The works emerge from a sense of nostalgia that flickers against the backdrop of Americana, blurring the line between myth and memory, the familiar and the foreign. Graham examines how constructed landscapes and mythic ideals, such as Route 66, continue to shape personal and collective narratives. By dissecting and recontextualising these visual symbols, she invites viewers to consider how identity and belonging are formed through the spaces we navigate, both real and imagined.

Through printmaking and sculpture, Graham investigates how personal and collective memories intertwine. The exhibition reflects on the allure of the American Dream, the symbolism of the flag, the romance of the open road, and the spaces between longing and belonging. The work explores how cultural symbols like the road sign transcend their origins, becoming vessels for imagined ideals and personal projections. By layering traditional printmaking with contemporary processes, she constructs fragmented yet intimate narratives that question how we inherit, consume, and reinterpret distant cultures.

Inspired by Rebecca Solnit’s A Field Guide to Getting Lost, Graham reflects on how being in unfamiliar territory prompts self-discovery. Solnit writes,

“Getting lost is not a matter of geography so much as identity.”

A sentiment that underpins Graham’s investigation into how identity is shaped by place and by the stories we create about those places. Her time spent driving through the deserts of Nevada, Arizona, and Utah led her to Route 66—a road that no longer physically exists but remains iconic in the global imagination. This mythic highway, once a symbol of freedom and possibility, now serves as a vessel of cultural memory, bridging the personal and collective experience of the American Dream.

Jean Baudrillard describes the American desert as a “place of emptiness,” a space for the simulation of American culture and a constructed canvas for projection. Graham looks into the paradox of the desert offering a liberating emptiness—a space for reflection and for experiencing the unmediated present. Graham channels this tension in her work by navigating the boundary between the authentic and the artificial, exploring freedom in disconnection, and finding oneself in new and unfamiliar places.

About the artist

Kathryn Graham (b. 1995, Northern Ireland) is a Belfast based visual artist and lecturer at Belfast School of Art. Graham graduated from the Royal College of Art with a Distinction MA in Print in 2019. She graduated from Belfast School of Art with a First-class honours Fine Art degree in 2017. In 2019, Graham achieved a Norman Ackroyd Printmaking Fellowship at City & Guilds of London Art School completed in 2021. Graham has received a further fellowship in 2022 from the University of Creative Arts. She is interested in the relationship between printmaking and sculpture.

Graham has shown work internationally in India, China and the United States. Recent exhibitions include solo shows at QSS studios gallery, Ards Art centre and group exhibits, Impact 12 Bristol, , Arcade Belfast, Hang Tough Contemporary Dublin, RE Bankside Gallery London, Woolwich Contemporary Print fair London, Royal Ulster Academy Belfast, Southwark Park Galleries London, CCA Derry, Cream Athens and Cole Projects London. Graham was awarded a Space Artist Award in (2021) including a London based residency, Arts Council India residency award (2020), Gwen May printmaking award (shortlisted) and RUA Outstanding Students Award (2017. Graham was recipient of Arts council and A-N artists funding and has work held in collections of Victoria and Albert Museum, The Royal College of Art and The University of Ulster.