Alexandra Grant’s
piece of artwork titled conspirar (after
Michael Joyce’s “conspire,” (2004), 2005) is a mixed media on paper, but
the majority of the work is composed of acrylic paints. It is 126 x 80 inches
large, and is a part of the Collection of OCMA (Orange County Museum of Arts),
Gift of Honor Fraser and Stavros Merjos. It is quite obvious that this work of
art is primarily focused on the Hispanic culture due to the Spanish written
words and phrases all over the piece. The Spanish language is Alexandra’s
native language. She collaborated with Michael Joyce’s piece “conspire” and used the words he wrote
and translated them in her first-born language, Spanish.
The piece is beautifully flourished with a variety of tones of colors; saturated in hues of purples. She focused on the color purple in this piece because it is perceived as both feminine and masculine. To her it represents the color of daily life; it is both a pop color and a regal color. These prominent colors attract the viewer’s attention immediately. It is lively and vibrant and might cause confusing to people whose first-born language is something other than Spanish. The foreign words on the painting are written backwards and circled in a text bubble. Alexandra’s goal was that she wanted to teach the viewers the difference between reading a simple text and fully perceiving it. This piece is complex through its thought provoking way of making the viewers understand the meaning behind and within the context of the words and not just the words itself.
There are also three ladders within the piece. The ladder is symbolic because it resembles the levels of writing. Alexandra Grant artwork is portraying a didactic ladder: representing the intentions she wanted to teach her viewers about the concept behind the meaning of the backwards Spanish words. The ladder on the bottom left of the painting is the most prominent one and leads the viewer’s eyes to the cluster of unidentified words. This depicts the concept of education and moving up in the ladder of education: the higher you go up the ladder the more educated you may be. Once we have reached the top of the ladder, those born with English-speaking language, will automatically not be able to fully comprehend the words. Even those born of Spanish-speaking language will not be able to automatically decipher the meaning of the words because of the way they are written: backwards. Alexandra is rendering our minds to think with more intricacy with concepts and meaning behind what we seem to believe as simple to understand. We can read words, hear words, write words, say words… but what do they really mean?
Alexandra Grant is successful in her stimulating piece of work. Conspirar is an artwork that elicits a continuing discourse among all of its viewers.
The piece is beautifully flourished with a variety of tones of colors; saturated in hues of purples. She focused on the color purple in this piece because it is perceived as both feminine and masculine. To her it represents the color of daily life; it is both a pop color and a regal color. These prominent colors attract the viewer’s attention immediately. It is lively and vibrant and might cause confusing to people whose first-born language is something other than Spanish. The foreign words on the painting are written backwards and circled in a text bubble. Alexandra’s goal was that she wanted to teach the viewers the difference between reading a simple text and fully perceiving it. This piece is complex through its thought provoking way of making the viewers understand the meaning behind and within the context of the words and not just the words itself.
There are also three ladders within the piece. The ladder is symbolic because it resembles the levels of writing. Alexandra Grant artwork is portraying a didactic ladder: representing the intentions she wanted to teach her viewers about the concept behind the meaning of the backwards Spanish words. The ladder on the bottom left of the painting is the most prominent one and leads the viewer’s eyes to the cluster of unidentified words. This depicts the concept of education and moving up in the ladder of education: the higher you go up the ladder the more educated you may be. Once we have reached the top of the ladder, those born with English-speaking language, will automatically not be able to fully comprehend the words. Even those born of Spanish-speaking language will not be able to automatically decipher the meaning of the words because of the way they are written: backwards. Alexandra is rendering our minds to think with more intricacy with concepts and meaning behind what we seem to believe as simple to understand. We can read words, hear words, write words, say words… but what do they really mean?
Alexandra Grant is successful in her stimulating piece of work. Conspirar is an artwork that elicits a continuing discourse among all of its viewers.
