Meet the Artist:

Interview with Anthony Grant

Anthony Grant, a Bay Area graphic designer and artist, balances his professional life crafting brand identities and user interfaces with his personal passion for creating collages. He strives for perfection and innovative solutions in his professional work but finds beauty in imperfections, textures, and introspection in his personal art. His work has been exhibited at NIAD, District, and Themes+Projects in California and featured in Plastikcomb Magazine and Black Collagists The Book.

Where are you in your creative journey? How did you get there?

I am finally in a comfortable groove in my creative journey. In the last three years I have been consistently getting to my studio. It has been a circuitous route back to collage. I studied graphic design and for a few years tried to get illustrator gigs. My editorial illustration style was collage-centered. I explored other creative techniques over the years but came back to collage over the last three years.

Who are your biggest influences, and what about them inspires you?

Mark Bradford is one of my biggest influences. The scale of his pieces, the layering, and how community is a central aspect of his practice. I have quite a few influences. Each person exhibits a quality I aspire to. It could be based on style, subject matter, how they speak through their work—any number of those things. Aaron Marin, Adolphous Washington, Emory Douglas, Lorna Simpson, Glen Ligon, Barbara Kruger, Lucky (Kelly) Rapp, Anne Lise Coste...I could go on

What is your dream project? When do you see yourself completing it?

I worked on a mural two years ago in Baltimore. It was 22 feet wide by 11 feet tall. I would like to continue working in large scale—not necessarily larger than that mural. I am not sure when these works will be created but I am hoping to complete a larger body of work within this next year.