SLADE GRAVES is a self-proclaimed “idea” person. One of her best ideas was to pursue a professional career in painting. Her current work is the culmination of 25 years experience in figurative drawing, painting, and lithography. Slade received her BA from ASU in Tempe Arizona. She is primarily self taught - her most valuable education has been through observation and experimentation.
Slade’s art has been reviewed in Art News and shown at galleries throughout the United States (New Jersey, Texas, Alexandria Va., Buffalo, N.Y., Scottsdale, Santa fe, Baltimore, and Naples Florida). The work is also in collections in Iceland and Italy. .
I'm making art. I make it with charcoal,pens, pencils, watercolors, inks, spray paint, tea, stencils, rub-ons, brushes, rollers, Q-tips, metal, glass and walls. I don't make it with preconceived ideas or thoughts. I make it from a flash of color, a line drawn somewhere that I followed, a poem, a light that makes me feel something. Mainly from the heart. Sometimes it looks like a diary written backwards. Maybe art makes me. I've looked at the masters, the Spaniards, Picasso, Cindy Sherman, DeKooning, Banksy. If it catches at me I take some time with it. And who looks at me? The people my art catches.
Deep gratitude to all my teachers past, living and present.