Rodney Graham

Rodney Graham (Abbotsford, British Columbia, 1949 – Vancouver, 2022) was a Canadian visual artist closely associated with the Vancouver School and the photoconceptual tradition of the 1970s. His conceptual work draws on historical literary, musical and philosophical references, and often revisits past technologies such as the camera obscura and film. He also played electric guitar in a band of visual artists in the late 1970s.

Among his early works is Camera Obscura (1979), a shed-sized optical device set up on his family's farm, where viewers saw an inverted image of a solitary tree. From 1983 he developed an extensive body of work on Sigmund Freud, and in the 1990s he was best known for his photographs of Welsh oaks seen upside down. From 1994 he starred in his own films, including Vexation Island (1997), shown at the Venice Biennale, where he represented Canada. In 2003 he began drawing and painting. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2016 and died in Vancouver in 2022, after a year of illness with cancer.