Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Girl With Hair Ribbon- after Lichtenstein








Grant has been very interested in Lichtenstein as of late and is often found thumbing through his worn copy of The 20th century Art Book at night studying his work.

Here we have a study of Lichtenstein's, Girl With Hair Ribbon. Lichtenstein faithfully reproduced an image from a commercialy printed comic strip, down to the Benday dots. The artist's hand is concealed as much as possible, altering the original only by means of scale, method and materials. Grant however, starts with Lichtenstein's reproduction and deconstructs it, showing his hand at every moment. His Benday dots are random and distorted, nothing more than an acknowledgement of their presence in the original. The smooth and precise application of color is replaced with rough scratches of crayon spilling across the image. While Lichtenstein sought to elevate a cartoon to high art, Grant works backwards and takes Lichtensteins painting past its comic roots and back to the origins of the comic- grafiti scrawled on a wall.

Monday, October 22, 2007

Robot Music



In this pencil on found paper drawing, three robotic figures amble across the page, their images are reflected in a mirrored surface below while energetic dashes punctuate the air around them. This piece was created while listening to Mike TV from the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory soundtrack. The marks were all made to the beat of the music. The artist drew until the rhythm was too much, danced for a minute or two then came back to the drawing before surrendering to the music several more times. Grant calls this technique "drawing a song".