Alexandra Grant

Describing herself as “a writer who writes with materials,” Alexandra Grant produces paintings, drawings, sculptures, and installations based on language. She is interested in how we engage with words, through reading, writing, speaking, and translation, and how it shapes our perception of others, the world, and ourselves. Her ongoing collaborations with philosophers, linguists, and actors, including Michael Joyce, Hélène Cixous, and Keanu Reeves, have earned her the designation, “radical collaborator.” Beginning with a text by or conversation with these collaborators, she transforms words into art. In her ongoing, multifaceted series, “Century of the Self” (begun 2010)—encompassing, for example, boldly colored paintings shaped like Rorschach tests and full of phrases like, “I see myself in you”—Grant presents the self as a collage of bodily drives and external influences, from mass market advertising to psychoanalysis.