Alexandra Grant facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Alexandra Grant
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Grant in 2014
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| Born | April 4, 1973 Fairview Park, Ohio, U.S.
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| Occupation | Visual artist |
| Years active | 2000–present |
| Partner(s) | Keanu Reeves (c. 2018–present) |
Alexandra Annette Grant (born April 4, 1973) is an American visual artist. She is known for creating art that uses words and language. She often works with other writers and artists on her projects. Alexandra Grant lives and works in Los Angeles, California.
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Early Life and Education
Alexandra Grant was born in Fairview Park, Ohio. Her father, Norman Grant, was a geology professor. Her mother, Marcia Grant, was a professor of political science and worked as a diplomat. Her parents lived in Africa and the Middle East for some time.
When Alexandra was young, her parents divorced. She lived with her mother in Mexico City. There, she went to a British school with students from many different countries.
At age 11, Alexandra attended a boarding school in St. Louis, Missouri, called the Thomas Jefferson School. Later, she moved with her mother to Paris, France. She went to the International School of Paris. Because she lived in different countries, Alexandra speaks English, Spanish, and French.
In 1990, she finished high school at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. In 1995, she earned a degree in history and studio art from Swarthmore College. She later received a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in drawing and painting in 2000. This was from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco.
Alexandra Grant's Art Career
Alexandra Grant is a visual artist who explores how words and stories connect with images. She often works with other artists and writers.
First Art Shows
In 2007, Alexandra Grant had her first solo art show. It was at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles. A solo exhibition means it only shows the work of one artist. Her art was inspired by an essay from a French writer named Hélène Cixous.
Grant's art is sometimes called "radical collaboration." This means she works very closely with others for a long time. She worked for many years with Michael Joyce, a fiction writer.
Community Art Projects
In 2008, Alexandra Grant joined the Watts House Project. This group helps improve homes in the Watts Towers area of Los Angeles. Grant planned to build a large art piece called "Love House" over one of the homes. The project faced some challenges, but she is still working to complete it.
In 2013, Grant worked with other artists on two art shows. These shows were in Santa Monica, California, and Saint-Ouen, France. They were based on a novel by Hélène Cixous.
Alexandra Grant continues to create art shows based on the words of authors. She says that artist R.B. Kitaj has influenced her work.
Teaching Art
Alexandra Grant has also taught art at different colleges. From 2009 to 2011, she taught at Art Center College of Design. She also taught at Cal State Northridge and mentored students in other art programs. In 2015, she co-taught a course in Ghana, Africa.
Making Films
In 2015, Grant directed a documentary film. It was called Taking Lena Home. The film was about returning a stolen tombstone to a rural area in Nebraska.
Working on Books
In 2009, Alexandra Grant met actor Keanu Reeves. This meeting led to their first book together, Ode to Happiness, published in 2011. It was Grant's first artist book and Reeves's first book as a writer.
In 2016, Grant and Reeves worked together again. They created a book called Shadows. This book included photographs taken by Grant. The photos were shown in art galleries.
X Artists' Books Publishing Company
In 2017, Alexandra Grant, Keanu Reeves, and designer Jessica Fleischmann started a small publishing company. It is called X Artists Books. They publish books that are a mix of art and writing.
Personal Life
Alexandra Grant has been in a relationship with the actor Keanu Reeves since 2019.
Alexandra Grant Quotes
- "Love at every level is deeply important to my identity."
- "I do not believe that isolation is the way. There is a period of isolation that I do as a painter, but I deeply value the experience of being in relationships."
- "I had to figure out how the images could match the text, both in their humor and their darkness."
- "I’d like to encourage people to cut it up — which sounds weird — but you could have this framed artwork if you wanted to." Alexandra said this about her collaboration with Keanu Reeves, Ode to Happiness.
Interesting Facts About Alexandra Grant
- Alexandra is over 6 feet tall.
- She started the GrantLOVE project. This project sells original artwork to help artists and art non-profit groups.
- She sells stickers, clothing, jewelry, and other items. The money helps charities in the Los Angeles area.
- Grant performed a wedding ceremony for two of her friends.
Selected Awards and Honors
- 2011: California Community Foundation, Fellowship for Visual Artists
- 2013: 18th Street Arts Center (Santa Monica, CA), residency
- 2015: Bemis Center for Contemporary Art (Omaha, NE), residency
- 2015: City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department, Individual Artists Fellowship
- 2018: SOMA (Mexico City, Mexico), residency
- 2019: Vermont Studio Center (Johnson, VT), visiting artist
Selected Exhibitions
Selected Solo Exhibitions
- 2013: "Forêt Intérieure/Interior Forest," 18th Street Arts Center (Santa Monica, CA) and Mains d'Œuvres (Saint-Ouen, France)
- 2016: “ghost town,” 20th Bienal de Arte Paiz (Guatemala City, Guatemala) – a drawing project with poet Vania Vargas
- 2017: "Antigone is you is me," Eastern Star Gallery, Archer School for Girls (Los Angeles, CA)
- 2019: "Born to Love," Lowell Ryan Projects (Los Angeles, CA)
- 2020: "Telepathy is One Step Further than Empathy," Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA) (Costa Mesa, CA)
Selected Group Exhibitions
- 2012: "Postscript: Writing After Conceptual Art," Museum of Contemporary Art Denver (Denver, CO)
- 2012: "Drawing Surrealism," Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles, CA)
- 2013: "Drawn to Language" work entitled "Century of the Self," USC Fisher Museum of Art (Los Angeles, CA)
- 2014: "Postscript: Writing After Conceptual Art," MSU Broad Museum at Michigan State University (East Lansing, MI)
- 2015: "These Carnations Defy Language" by Alexandra Grant and Steve Roden, Pasadena Museum of California Art (Pasadena, CA)
- 2020: "Group Show: Motel," A virtual exhibition with Peralta Projects
Selected Works
- 2004: "she taking her space (after Michael Joyce's "he taking the space of")," Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) (Los Angeles, CA)
- 2007: "Wallpaper (la escalera al cielo)", Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) (Los Angeles, CA)
- 2016: "Shadow (5)," after Keanu Reeves's “You are not here not even,” Blanton Museum of Art (Austin, TX)
See Also
In Spanish: Alexandra Grant para niños
