Resurrections: A studio visit with Jeremy Grant
Written by Kristopher Wright | info@odessadenver.com
9.1.2016
Jeremy Grant is an established artist and award-winning graphic designer. Born in California and raised in Colorado Springs, he received a B.S. in Graphic Design and Illustration from John Brown University. Now living and working in Denver, Grant remains active; regularly exhibiting in numerous solo and group shows across the state every year.
Jeremy, a self-proclaimed maximalist, pushes his works to transcend the shock-&-awe juxtapositions on which contemporary collage and assemblage often rely.
“The more I’ve done collage, the more I’ve sought to find new channels of making. Many collage artists will use these inflammatory images of blood, guns, and skin which feed on our primal fears and desires. But I’m more interested in thinking in terms of movement, layering, composition, and color. I want to create a progression through time or experience. Akin to a river’s journey to the sea.”
Jeremy breaks down his found images into color, texture, line, and shape; depriving the viewer of any past context. His interest in these collages is in allowing these fragments to become a catalyst for the unseen, rather than amplifying or twisting what has already been.
Each work, whether they be assemblage or collage, small or large, investigates these questions regarding birth, death, love, loss and meaning. As an artist of faith and avid student of both eastern and western philosophies, Grant’s work looks for the universal truths of life itself.
“Many of the greatest works of art throughout history have emerged out of the perspective of faith, but recently much of the art that’s made in regards to faith has a more aggressive, politicized tone in its conception.”
Citing Makoto Fujimura’s writing on treating culture as a garden, where all forms of life and growth should be cultivated and cared for. Jeremy’s work embraces the experience of spirituality rather than the politics of faith. Creating monuments of smoldering color and light that remind the viewer that life and art are as much about the process as it is the result; a meditation and a resurrection.
Jeremy's studio is currently located at Jubilee Roasting Co. in Aurora, Colorado. You can find out more about Jeremy here, and follow his work on Instagram here
