Adult play and childhood play and work and discovery and creating are all connected.  I do not believe in childhood innocence but I do believe there is a lot of adult naivete.  To mix the concept of sex with a loss of innocence seems very naive to me.  Adults are often “childish” about sex, and children are often much more honest and direct in their discussions about difficult subjects.

The drawings start on a blank page and the composition is usually made up as I go along.  A lot of changes occur and often I need to remove previous marks and change things around; colors, forms, textures.  Because the paper is thin and cheap, it’s easy to wrinkle and mark-up, and erasing takes a toll on it.  The marks that are left behind become part of the composition, often leaving textures around the figures.  They leave a record of the creation process, and remind me of kids drawings with eraser marks and smudges, and a history of choices on a page.

This notion of familiarity is consistent with a lot of my work in which things are amicable and abstract at the same time, or seem alive and lifeless by turns. I have a large collection of photographs of playground equipment and exercise equipment in parks.  The texture of objects and its patina of use on these objects, I found a similarity in its variations through using thick and often numerous applications of colored pencil and graphite.  Usually more than one color is used.  This texture of the drawing, are a result of different color pencil qualities, erasing and sanding and other handwork.

There is no consistent process for selecting the colors. Sometimes I start a drawing with one or more colors in mind, even before the forms. The colors are often added one at a time, in response to the color/s that are already on the paper and to the form that the objects take. I often think of colors of manufactured objects like dishes, toys, and tools.

There are four pre-selected colors I use for the frames and those too are selected while thinking about manufactured objects and equipment. The frame color is paired with the drawing element based on things happening within the drawing, particularly the colors and the proximity of the forms to the edge of the sheet. When I pair the frame element with he drawing element I am trying to create a complete object.

My work is untrustworthy but honest.

– Jeff Grant excerpt from The Interview with Bart Keijsers Koning

Jeff Grant (1975) lives and works between Berlin and New York. He studied at the Rhode Island School of Design in 1998 and at Goldsmiths College in London in 2000.His work has been shown throughout Europe and the US: Grimm/Rosenfeld, Munich; Thomas Erben Gallery, Marianne Boesky Gallery, Whitespace, and Team Gallery. He was recently included in Circus of Books at Fierman Gallery, The Unspeakable, Dark Show at Re: Art Show, NY. His work is in private collections throughout the US and Europe and he’s currently working on a sculpture commission in the Canary Islands.