Piper Grant

 

Our environments have been shaped radically by human intervention, but so have we humans been shaped by our environment. In my oil paintings, I try to imagine how the flora, fauna, and pollution of planet earth will react to the absence of people. Hand crafted toys, lumps of clay, cardboard, shiny bits of glass, and carefully modified flora remain despite the absence of the ones that molded them. In my version of a world without people, those things we left behind become autonomous; searching, struggling, and yearning in imitation of the human experience. I’m inspired by Georgia O'Keefe's paintings and the science fiction worlds of H.G. Wells because I find myself constantly impressed by both of their abilities to recreate a common experience as a devastating surreality. 

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Many of my paintings feature figures that are fictitious, or made by way of a construction of unlikely materials. I tend to use vibrant artificial light to create a sense of contrast and tension within each artwork. Bright reds and greens flood the environment of my constructed creatures to show that their world is no longer reflective of our own. I believe that each painting is a conversation about grief, endurance, and an unspoken love language between humanity and the natural world. 

 

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Piper Grant was born and raised in Rock Hill, South Carolina. From an artistic family, she began drawing at an early age and quickly became obsessed with story-telling through paint. Grant received her B.F.A. in Studio Art and a B.A. in Art History from Converse University, and her M.F.A. from the New York Academy of Art.​ Grant was a guest lecturer at Converse University and Northwestern High School. She is currently a freelance artist, an Art Instructor at Central Piedmont Community College, and an art history buff. Grant currently lives and paints in the vivacious neighborhood of Charlotte, North Carolina.