Born and raised in Chicago, LD Grant was bred in blue-collar suburbia and imprinted by ultra-violent movies, video games and turbulent relationships.
Working in ink, acrylic paint, colored pencils, and pastels, LD creates mixed-media works that focus on the follies of sex and the underworld. Other themes include the struggle between decadent trappings (such as antiquities and fine dining) and the ridiculous, living or reaching for the high life, and existing as a social outcast.
Nathan Cartwright: I’m originally from the alien Midwest also- tell me how have you, coming from the conservative lands, meshed with the fast environment of California Freedom lands?
LD Grant: Well maybe for you–you are the only Eagle Scout I have ever known. But you are talking to someone who went to a matinee of Friday the 13th Part 3 (in 3-D) with my dad at age 7. By 16, I was having girlfriends sleep over –which their mommies didn’t like. Parents of teenage girls are always conservative, mine were progressive. Unfortunately, no matter where you go, you can’t always trust the witticisms on someone’s t-shirt to tell you who they really are. Sayings printed on underwear are an entirely different matter…
Nathan Cartwright: Your work is very sexual- is art your fuel for sex or sex your fuel for art?
LD Grant: I believe sex may be the only clean-burning, self-sustaining fuel on the planet. Sex is important to me, so it’s included in my work, along with antiques, women, and darkness… maybe that’s what those recurring, alien hunchbacks are all about.
Nathan Cartwright: What’s your favorite B-movie? Has it appeared in your work?
LD Grant: I don’t know that there is a way to capture the essence of the Evil Dead/Army of Darkness movies in a static image, but it would be so cool to. They are so great, simultaneously stupid, gory, and so frenetic.
Nathan Cartwright: Do you spend much time figuring out your paradoxical titles?
LD Grant: Sometimes the idea for a piece comes out of some oxymoron or hyperbole I read or hear in passing. Usually it’s more about the piece illustrating an idea and the title follows, but occasionally, I’ll have a title in mind as soon as I start a piece. I have to admit that a couple of times I’ve named pieces two seconds before handing them off to be shown…just trying to put a verbal translation of the visual.
Nathan Cartwright: What are your plans for your featured show at The Hive?
LD Grant: Something akin to the Chuck E Cheese/Showbiz ticket redemption prize booth. As much stuff as I can churn out in different sizes, all crammed into the space they give me. Alas, I don’t think there will be a Wack-A-Mole.
LD will be featured artist at The Hive starting June 2nd- July1st. Jeff’s work can be seen at The Hive Gallery opening April 7th-29th.