Underneath every one of Sarah Grant’s paintings is a tic-tac-toe board. Painted on paper rather than canvas, they often include dozens of layers of paint on top of that simple game, all hidden by the topmost layer of color. “From that foundation, I get past the fear of the white paper,” she says.
Grant—a Des Moines artist and owner of the gallery STICKS, which sells handcrafted furniture—held an exhibition at Central College in August and September. Although she earned her M.A. in printmaking from the University of Iowa, she felt the art form was not reflecting her true self—her love of color and her lack of patience. “I move fast. I think fast. I paint fast,” she says.
When she completed her master’s, Grant had only taken a few painting courses and she clearly remembered the advice of a professor during her undergrad years at Colorado State University: “You should go back to the drawing department. You’re not a good painter at all.” Despite those words ringing in her head, Grant decided to literally cross the river—since the painting department was on the other side of Iowa’s campus—and try her hand at painting. This transition is the subject of one of her pieces in Central College’s Mills Gallery, a 2010 painting titled “I Met Me at the River.”
Grant doesn’t want to categorize her work as abstract, or any other genre, but she does describe it as “conceptual.” The Mills exhibit featured work from throughout Grant’s long career as a painter, so viewers could see the evolution of her artwork right before their eyes. “This is of the story of my painting up until 2011,” she says. “Something else could happen tomorrow.”
In fact, Grant is already working on a new set of paintings, to be displayed at Olson-Larsen Galleries in Des Moines this October. And her work is changing again. “They’re not looking a thing like these,” she says with a laugh.
Watch Grant’s full talk at the Mills Gallery.
