Light Work to host artist lecture by photographer Lonnie Graham April 5

Light Work to host artist lecture by photographer Lonnie Graham April 5March 29, 2006Jessica Heckmanjhheckma@syr.edu

The Light Work gallery, located at 316 Waverly Ave., will host a lecture by renowned photographer Lonnie Graham April 5 at 5:30 p.m. in Watson Theater. The event is being co-sponsored by the Department of Transmedia in the College of Visual and Performing Arts and the departments of African American studies and fine arts in The College of Arts and Sciences. Graham will discuss his work and experience working on public art projects and community-based photographic series and projects. The lecture is free and open to the public. Paid parking is available in all SU pay lots.

Graham produces a variety of work including stunning portraits, room-sized installation pieces and public art projects that integrate the community. His work focuses on three elements–the individual, family and community. According to the Fabric Workshop and Museum, “As a teacher and artist, his work encourages recognition of shared experience and the vital relationship between individual and community.”

Graham is the founder of the African/American Garden Project, a physical and cultural exchange program. The project created a cultural exchange between urban single mothers, an elderly African American community and farmers from a small village in Kenya. Graham has exhibited his work internationally and was awarded a Pew Fellowship in the Arts, one of the largest grants for an individual artist, which supported the project. He has also received three fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council for the Arts and a National Endowment for the Arts/Pew Charitable Trust Travel Grant.

Graham has extensive teaching experience and is currently professor of visual and integrative arts at Pennsylvania State University and an instructor of special programs at the Barnes Foundation. He studied at the Novia Scotia College of Art and Design and the San Francisco Art Institute. His work is included in the permanent collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Delaware Museum of Art in Wilmington, Del.; the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, Mass.; the Museum of African American History in Detroit, Mich.; the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C.; and the Schomberg Center in New York City. He participated in Light Work’s Artist-in-Residence program in 2003 and had a solo exhibition in the Light Work main gallery in 2004.

Light Work is a nonprofit, artist-run organization dedicated to the support of artists working in photography and electronic media. For more information, call 443-1300.