Shaunia Grant is an object maker, born and raised in the border town of Las Cruces, New
Mexico. They graduated from New Mexico State University in 2020 with their BFA in Studio Art and are currently an MFA Candidate at the University of Georgia School of Art. Their identity as a queer, indigenous Latinx person informs their material language as a maker and scholar as they consider assimilated notions of desire and contend with a complicated relationship with sentimentality.
Shaunia L Grant
she/they
"In my current work, I hope to create an inauthentic sense of sentimentality by defamiliarizing recognizable birthday party objects and pulling away from the full experience. The aesthetics of the work play with the ideal “American” livelihood and the sadness that my Mexican and indigenous culture has been replaced for a more hollow version of conformity. This empty, consumer birthday party feels empty, like the idea of a birthday instead of an actual celebratory moment. The objects that I create exist as performers, set pieces, and costumes for an experience. They are often made from materials laced with cultural and personal significance but very little monetary value. Manipulation of the materials enables the viewer to consider how their understanding of the objects becomes complicated through experience and time. Through bright colors and patterns, the objects beg to be perceived, but cannot be fully interacted with. These objects act as a memorial of anticipation, becoming tools to the complicate the experiences."
“Accepting my queerness was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. Not only did I find comfort in myself but also in the community surrounding queerness. The beauty of living an openly queer life could only be described as euphoric.”
What does [queerphoria] mean to you? This can be something felt, experienced, or made.
Blower Box
“Queerness has allowed me to understand the world around me in an alternative way. When uprooting expectations of sexual identity and gender, it becomes much easier to do the same with materials. Things become less prescriptive. Other expectations can be questioned: value, desire, color. Something that was once tossed aside becomes the center point of a work.”
What does being queer mean to you in relation to your material choices? Is it something you consider?
“The maker is queer”
Is the work queer because the maker is queer, or is it queer because the subject matter is queer?
Open Up, Paper, Brass, Powder Coat, Tape 2022
“When I’m making work I’m very Often thinking about the way that viewers interact with my work. One of the goals of my work is reflection and to some degree, a sense of confusion. I hope that viewers can recognize the thinking involved, which is tied to my queerness.”
“I like to think that my queerness touches everything in my life. The studio is the place that I am able to express myself through creation. Being queer has opened up my mind to different ways of thinking, allowing more experimentation with material and a deeper relationship with what things mean. My loved experience is also always colored with queerness. My work is personal and an extension of myself. Often times the ways in which the materials interact with each other is a reflection of the way I have interacted with the world.”
What role does your studio practice play in your identity- if at all?
When creating your work, do you consider the relationship your object has with the viewer?
Mylar Balloon, Brass, Powder Coat, 2021
Lesbianism is really beautiful and amazing and I love being one.
We've asked you a lot of our questions... What is one thing you would like to share?
Blow!