Shona Grant

Website: https://www.shonagrantsart.com/

Email: Shonagrant99@gmail.com

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Statement

My artistic background is in illustration and I worked as a freelance book illustrator for over twenty years. In 2014 I changed artistic medium to photography having previously studied it as part of my college course. I did not continue with photography for long after college as I had no access to a darkroom and consequently much of my artistic expression was compromised. In 2014 I bought a digital camera and so the whole possibility of processing and printing my own photographs returned.
As a photographer I present my work in a physical form with my preference being artists’ books. I think perhaps because my illustrations appear in book form I am very familiar with it. Artists’ books are not ordinary bound books but handmade unique artworks in their own right. The viewer can hold the work, open it in different ways and display it as an art object.
As children, books are one of the first ways we see the printed image and the book is still an important way for adults to view images as time can be taken to consider the image and its context within the visual story.
It is important that each individual photograph is strong enough to stand alone as an artwork. I take great care choosing the photographs, their sequences, their print medium, in addition to the weight of the book boards and design of the cover papers. The books need to be tactile and surprising. Sometimes I present the books with natural objects that relate to the subject matter to add another dimension to the photographs for the viewer.
One of my aims is to encourage people to engage differently with printed photographs within a gallery space by enabling them to physically handle them in an artists’ book or view them as large scale artists’ book installations as well as seeing the prints presented in a more conventional way on gallery walls.