IG: @l.n.g_art
laurengrantstudios.com

Painting the Face

*In collaboration with The Gem Fatale* I’ve always been interested in interactions, particularly interactions between the audience and my art. Portraiture is rooted in these controlled interactions. What is seen is a calculated representation of the subject. I’m intrigued by the opposite, the overlooked and unmade-up moments that are revealed behind the mask of a portrait. The ideas of makeup, contemporary beauty, and public and private identity are currently driving my work. Make-up is so synonymous with the masking of identity. However, there’s an agency in drawing attention to that mask; an act of reclaiming those synonymous stereotypes. My work is dramatic and highly saturated, it confronts make-up and the figure head-on in an often theatrical way. I reclaim the makeup through its emphasis on color and material. I bring the viewer into an intimate space, inviting them to participate within the portrait itself, showing them both the physical and metaphorical production of painting a face.

Bio

Lauren Grant is a contemporary portrait painter who truly loves to “paint a face.”  Born in Bangor, Maine, Lauren is an art history nerd trapped in an artist’s body. Grant’s work is heavily influenced by her love of people, identity, and interest in social structures. Expecting her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting from the Maine College of Art & Design this spring, her work has been shown throughout Portland, Maine where she now lives. When she is not painting, which is rarely ever, Lauren is an avid reader and researcher who can sometimes be seen practicing her flute or martial arts with which she has a second-degree black belt.