The Notebook

Discovering…Alexandra Grant

The season of love is upon us – regardless about how you feel about February 14th, you’re likely to fall in love with local artist Alexandra Grant. Grant is currently working with the Watts Housing Project (WHP) to revamp a house on 107th St., proposing an oversized Love sculpture atop the roof the home “meant to act as a ‘lightning rod’ to attract attention and resources to the project.”

Alexandra is collaborating with architects Roberto Scheinberg and Arnold Swanborn, as well as the house’s inhabitants, the Cerant family. Included in the Love House design are a new bedroom and sleeping loft (to accommodate the 5 children, 2 grandmothers and the parents living in the three-bedroom house), a garden that has permeable ground-cover as well as a fruits and vegetable gardens, a water-catchment system for rain, and two new porches for outdoor living space.

Most funds for the project have been raised by Grant herself, through the sale of the Love necklace, a miniature silver replica of the sculpture atop the house. Fans of the Love Necklace include Kate and Laura Mulleavy of Rodarte, who included the necklace in their collection for Parisian experimental retail space, Collette, along with a giant pink neon version.

Grant is a text-based artist who uses language and networks of words as the basis for her work in painting, drawing and sculpture, exploring ideas of translation, identity, and dis/location. Often in conversation with other artists and writers, such as hypertext author Michael Joyce and the philosopher Hélène Cixous, Grant created the work babel afte Joyce’s “Was”, 2006, exploring the many dimensions of translation through her illustration of the hypertext half-poem, half-narrative.

Posted by Petite Global Merchant on February 8th | CAFAM | No comments yet