Leah Grant’s ‘Becoming Once More’ Explores Self-Reflection, Identity
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Collage piece Presence IV (cyanotype, screenprint and laser engraving) is part of the exhibition Leah Grant: Becoming Once More, opening Feb. 9, 2023, at The Arts & Science Center.
Fayetteville Artist’s Exhibition of Screenprinting, Collage Opens Feb. 9 with Reception
Leah Grant explores self-reflection and identity in a new exhibition opening Thursday, Feb. 9, 2023, at The Arts & Science Center for Southeast Arkansas.
Leah Grant
The public is invited to the free opening reception for Leah Grant: Becoming Once More from 5-7 p.m. It is one of several events and activities taking place that evening at the center’s campus, as part of ASC’s Art Night on The Block.
The exhibition — ASC’s first of 2023 — is sponsored by Simmons Bank. Reception libations are sponsored by MK Distributors.
The Fayetteville-based artist combines techniques such as screenprinting, photography, cyanotype and collage. Grant’s work recontextualizes her experiences by revealing and concealing the vulnerable parts of her identity to create new ones through collaging and using images taken from a personal archive.
“I use self-reflection to explore the relationships I have with others to better understand the relationship I have with myself,” she explained in her artist statement. “My research seeks to provide counter-narratives around what it means to be a Black woman by accessing and exposing vulnerable components of my experiences.”
She continued, “I incorporate collage through print, photo, and video processes such as screenprinting, cyanotypes, laser engraving, photography, video, and audio techniques to assist with the parts of my identity I wish to reveal and conceal. This body of work allows me to exist in the multiple and serves as a reminder to be gentle with myself.”
Nebulous II is one of the screenprints in the exhibition Leah Grant: Becoming Once More, opening Feb. 9, 2023, at The Arts & Science Center
The exhibition “is a contemplative and captivating blend of media and materials that examines the complex makings of identity, and the components that help to shape it,” said Kevin Haynie, ASC’s curator of collections and exhibitions.
“Leah Grant’s clarity and intention are simultaneously obscured and abstracted by her layering of color, form, and space as she carefully determines just how much of herself to reveal to the viewer,” he said.
Becoming Once More will be in the International Paper Gallery through Saturday, April 29. Gallery admission at ASC is always free.
About Leah Grant
Leah Grant lives in Fayetteville, where she graduated with her Master of Fine Arts degree in studio art from the University of Arkansas’ School of Art in 2021. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Henderson State University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, in 2016.
Grant identifies herself as an “Artist In The Multiple” because her art practice exists within printmaking, photography, writing, audio, and video. Her goal as an artist is to create intimacy in public spaces by incorporating collage techniques and poems to reveal and conceal the vulnerable parts of herself and her community. Visit her website, leahgrant.art.
