Holly Graham

Holly Graham

London’s Lower East Side

The Montmartre of London

The new Hoxton

2023

Three billboards around Deptford and New Cross

Image credits: Holly Graham, ‘London’s Lower East Side’ | ‘The Montmartre of London’ | ‘The new Hoxton’, 2023, Commissioned by Deptford X. Photos: Katarzyna Perlak

This work occupies a series of billboards, formed from fragments of promotional language used to describe Deptford X. Heterogeneous voices are scrambled, regrouped and collaged together, with Graham considering the tendency of arts and culture to be co-opted and used to fuel gentrification, examining artists’ complicity in this process and contemplating the broader implications of these uneasy dynamics.

Holly Graham is a London-based artist whose work looks at ways in which memory and narrative shape collective histories. Holly holds a BFA from Oxford University and an MA in Printmaking from the Royal College of Art. Recent solo projects include commissions with: UP Projects & Barnet Council (2023); TACO!, London (2021-23); Skelf, Online (2022); Robert Young Antiques, London (2021); Gaada, Shetland (2020); Goldsmiths CCA, Online (2020); and Southwark Park Galleries, London (2020). Holly is an Associate Lecturer at the Royal College of Art, London; and is Co-Founder of Cypher BILLBOARD, London. She was awarded a scholarship at the British School in Rome for 2023.