John Grande
John Grande was born in 1969 in Huntington Long Island. He attended the School Of Visual Arts in 1995 earning his BFA. After graduating, Grande moved to NYC and worked as a professional C Printer at several High End photo labs in NYC. During this time, John Grande printed for such High-End-Fashion, Music- and Fine-Art-photographers like Mick Rock, Miles Aldrich, Jack Pearson, Anne Liebovitz, Marc Baptiste, Giles Bensimon, Jerry Schatzberg, to name a few. This practice highly influenced his personal work, allowing him to Asses their work, study their compositions and visual techniques for creating a successful image.
Since that time, Grande has exhibited in Solo and Group Shows throughout the world (New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Washington DC, Korea, Italy, India, Canada). Grande is a photo-based artist, who works in project form. Using photo reference to produce a “photo realistic” style with paint into a visual dialogue, while constantly searching for different ways of solving contextual problems and ideas. Incorporating pop-culture – contemporary or retro –, branding symbols, advertising logos, superheroes, phrases and art. Grande Interweaves them together, transforming their original meanings, continuously adding to the vocabulary of art.
His current work explores “the deconstruction of popular culture through advert street posting and the investigation of this thought into material.”
«My art comes from the history of art and the culture of our times. I am interested in work that is derived out of today’s overwhelming multimedia world.»