Akins Graham

Graham Akins is an interdisciplinary artist who works with computer graphics and 3D scanning, sculpture, video, and installations, seeking to address cultural and philosophical questions concerning nature as an abstract ideal, the complex issue of animals as other minds, the limitations of human knowledge, and the aesthetics of representation within.

His work is based on both history and criticism of Western philosophy, new theories of ontology and ecology, the commodification of wildlife / animals, popular science fiction, and the artistic tradition of absurdism. Graham Akins was born in Texas and lives in Los Angeles, where he studied photography, media art, and German, and is currently a graduate student in the media arts Department at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The practice of the Graham Akins Studio revolves around our complex relationship to reality, simulation, and how technology mediates the image of the outside world. Using photography, video, 3D modeling, and sculpture, the artist creates large multimedia installations that play with the concepts of objectness, the sinister valley, our understanding of otherness, and modern image creation techniques.

Recent projects include research on the aestheticization of garbage, experimental wildlife documentaries that explore the quality of our relationships with other thoughts, and videos about sculptural objects that combine these abstract materials to imitate themselves.

EDUCATION