Who: Kimberly MacArthur Graham, Denver, and Bonnie Ferrill Roman, Arvada
Medium: Oil and mixed media on panel combined with hot wax, paper, branches, leaves, pods and seeds
Their story: Graham and Roman met in 2001, when they were both exhibiting in the same Denver gallery. Although they have different styles, the two women discovered they had some important things in common: They were both in their mid-30s, they both love nature and incorporate it into their work, and they were both interested in collaborating with another artist.
“Working as an artist is very, very isolating sometimes,” says Graham, who graduated from the University of Texas in 1991 with a bachelor’s degree in studio art and moved to Denver shortly afterward, where she earned a master’s in art history. Adds Roman, a Colorado native who has bachelor and master’s degrees in fine arts: “When you work with someone else, it’s not just your work, so you’re freed from worrying what people will think of you. It takes the ego out of your work.”
Graham specializes in what she calls “intense, nearly obsessive work” – small, colorful, translucent oil and acrylic panels with numerous layers of a variety of materials, ranging from ghost money to gold leaf. “I’m really, really interested in life cycles and growth patterns, and the balance and attraction of opposites,” she says.
Roman began as a metal sculptor until one day in the mid- 1990s, when she picked up some twigs during a walk on the banks of the Mississippi, just outside the doors of the University of Minnesota’s art school, where she was studying for her master’s degree.
“I draped some paper I made in a papermaking class over the twigs and made a 6-foot-by- 6-foot tent,” she says. She loved the result so much, she began making paper and branch sculptures dipped in beeswax, which adds translucence. “They’re very figurative but completely abstract. They’re not the form of a person, but the paper is skinlike, and the branches are bonelike,” Roman says.
Graham and Roman realized their work could complement each other’s – Graham’s use of color embellishes Roman’s white paper and brown twigs, and Roman’s three-dimensional sculptures add depth to Graham’s flat panels. They devised a collaboration where Graham makes a panel and Roman designs a frame of paper and branches, leaves, pods or seeds. Sometimes the system is reversed, and Roman’s work is inset into Graham’s.
The result is a 2-year-old series titled “Cross-pollination,” which both artists say is inspired by Colorado’s natural beauty and changing seasons. “The pieces combine our work in surprising and satisfying ways,” Graham says.
Approach to their work: Since Graham and Roman design different pieces of the same work, they can work singly. “It’s not like having two painters painting on the same canvas, so we don’t have to agree on what we’re doing every step of the way,” Roman says.
They begin a piece by putting together a schedule of who will do what when, working backward from the final deadline. Each collaboration is designed to incorporate equal amounts of Graham’s and Roman’s work. “We realized it wouldn’t work if one person feels like she’s doing more than the other person,” Roman says.
Both artists agree that the collaboration has made them better artists. “You know you’re responsible to someone else, so you want to be at the top of your game so as to not disappoint the other person,” Roman says.
Cost range: $1,000 to $4,000
Where to find their work: Graham and Roman’s “Cross-pollination” works will be part of an exhibition at the Lakewood Cultural Center May 9-31. They’re also available at Stoneheart Gallery in Evergreen, along with Roman’s solo work. Graham’s solo work is sold at Sandra Phillips Gallery in Denver. – By Vicky Uhland, special to The Denver Post
