About | Joanna Grant - Mixed Media Art

About Joanna Grant

Biography

Joanna Grant is a Canadian artist from the Okanagan Valley, British Columbia. Her mixed media and abstract art is vibrant, colourful and highly textural. She draws inspiration from nature, her love of music and travel, and the study of metaphysics.

Joanna’s art usually incorporates many recycled or repurposed elements. “It’s very rewarding to create a piece of art that someone will treasure using items that would otherwise end up in our landfills. And it is SO much fun using recycling in my work because there are no rules as a mixed media artist. Anything goes, and I love to pair unlikely elements for juxtapositional effect. If the viewer finds my work entertaining, inspirational or thought-provoking, then I have done my job as an artist,” she says. Joanna is a popular instructor and has taught many classes and workshops both in-person and online to students around the globe. She is a published artist and her work can be found in collections worldwide. Joanna is also a business consultant/coach, drawing on her experience and education (she holds both business and design degrees). She specializes in working with creative entrepreneurs to develop their business skills to take their artful endeavours to new heights of success. She says, “I have been blessed with a business-oriented brain as well as an artist’s brain. It’s a rare thing to have both and it’s important, on a deeply personal level to me, to help other creatives tap into their own abilities, business wise. For those looking to make a living with their art, this is the key to success.” Inquiries regarding either art workshops or business consulting are welcomed. Please email me HERE.

I love to take things headed for the trash and turn them into art that others will treasure. If I can create something beautiful and heartfelt that another will love while keeping stuff out of our landfills, well, that is just so rewarding on many levels!

Joanna Grant

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Artist Statement

I’ve been creative my entire life. Coloring and drawing as a young child. Designing home layouts as a young teen thinking about a career in architecture. Teaching my first classes in my late teens. Starting my own graphic design business in my mid-20’s and a jewelry design business through my mid 30’s. And then really delving deeply into art on a more serious basis about 25 years ago.

I’ve always been called “a rebel.” I can remember back in my 20’s a former employer looking down his nose at me and saying I was “a square peg in a round hole.” He thought he was being clever with the insult. I took it as a compliment because I’ve never cared about fitting in. I take that same approach with my art.

Mixed media and abstract art works for me. There are no rules. You don’t “have” to do this kind of art in a certain way. I bring together recycled items, miscellaneous products and art supplies that aren’t meant for one another. I like to see what happens when I put these “odd bedfellows” together. Experimentation could be my middle name!

I love to create multiple layers on a canvas, watching how products attract and repel one another with fascinating effects, or how strange color combinations or textures play off each other. Vibrant color and deep textural effects are hallmarks of my style of art. I embrace the imperfectness of the results I get as if I planned it that way.

I believe in the healing powers of the arts and try to infuse my work with inspiration, hope and a bit of whimsy. My art has been my saviour in some very difficult periods of my life and it is so gratifying when a client tells me that my art has helped them too. There is no greater compliment than that!

My work is inspired by nature on a daily basis. My love of music and travel also brings me much inspiration, as does my study of metaphysics. I work intuitively, almost always without a plan of any kind. I work on multiple pieces at a time, stopping when the inspiration fades, confident that it will return to me at the right time. It always does. That is the definition of synchronicity to me.

I am deeply appreciative of the incredible support that my clients and followers give me. That my work resonates with so many says to me that I am on my true path, sharing light, hope and inspiration in my own small way.

Thank you for being here!

Namaste