East Anglia-based artist Bryony Graham will be in residence at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts from now until the end of February. Unusually, her fascinating project focuses on the stands that objects in the Centre’s permanent collection are mounted on, as works of art in their own right. Visitors to the Centre will able to watch her at work in the gallery and talk to her about what she is doing. Admission to the Sainsbury Centre’s permanent collections is free.

Bryony hopes that visitors will feel happy to approach her to find out more about her work, to talk about it and to share their thoughts with her.

“I very much want people’s thoughts to become part of what I produce during my residency and beyond, to help shape a new body of my work. As part of what I’ll be doing, I’ll be talking with visitors about ideas around the meaning of support and – ultimately – why and how you make a stand and for what, whether it’s for a beautiful object, friends and family or for a belief or cause”
– Bryony Graham.

During her time at the Sainsbury Centre, Bryony will be engaging with visitors and all of the Centre’s staff, from gallery assistants to the curatorial team, in her exploration of the shapes, materials and meanings of the stands which are often overlooked but essential part of museum and gallery kit. Online, she will be keeping a record of the project with an artist’s blog (this will be accessible via the Sainsbury Centre’s website www.scva.org.uk).

“The Sainsbury Centre has a continuing commitment to working with contemporary artists. Each season we have artists working in the galleries, either as resident artists or leading the fantastic programme of workshops we run for schools and gallery visitors. We are also working closely with artists on our outreach project, Culture of the Countryside, in schools and communities throughout Norfolk and Suffolk. I am delighted that Bryony Graham is with us for several months and I am very excited about her project”
– Veronica Sekules, Head of Education and Research, Sainsbury Centre.

Working extensively in the Living Area gallery, Bryony will journey through the Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection of world and modern European art investigating the crafted stands and mounts that were the inspiration for Bryony’s current project, Standings. During her residency she will use photography and experimental drawing to create works on paper that will shape plans for new future large-scale sculptural work.

Standings is an important research and development project supported by an Arts Council Grants for the Arts grant awarded to Bryony Graham. Her residency at the Sainsbury Centre is just one element of a programme of work planned to last 10 months. Other stages of Standings will take Bryony to the First Site Gallery in Colchester, Essex and Bentwater Business Park, Suffolk, and to the King’s Lynn Arts Centre in Norfolk.