Grant Leier

APPROPRIATION SERIES: "In September of 2018, I began an intensive series of work in my studio exploring appropriated images from historical reference and online search. My work has always had some degree of appropriation. This collection takes the raw appropriated image in its original black and white form, edits and paints the image, and creates a diptych with an unrelated found image. The two images are more often than not incongruous and a narrative is formed between the work and the viewer; I find this very exciting. The paintings are bold, immediate, and the images are often hit you over the head recognizable. They demand the viewer to make some sense of the combined graphic."

“I feel a need to inject intense colour, pattern, and a sense of celebration into everything I paint. I want the ordinary to be exotic, the black dog to be red, the pears to be blue. My focus has been colour, people, animals and… still life. More than anything I want my images to evoke a sense of well-being and goodness… I believe that documenting social and political concerns in the visual arts is important, but I feel it is equally important to pursue the creation of work that simply makes you feel good."