Louis Grant is an emerging artist based on Ngunnawal and Ngambri land (Canberra), working professionally within the Canberra Glassworks community and as an independent studio artist. He graduated in 2018 with a Bachelor of Visual Art (Honours) from ANU School of Art and Design. Focusing on glass as his primary medium, he was accepted into the renowned program at Pilchuck Glass School (USA) in (2016-18) through which he continued to extend his technical understanding of glass, forming the skill-base that allows him to complicate and subvert the discipline and medium to speak of a queer experience.
In 2019 he was selected to exhibit in the Hatched National Graduate Show 2019 at PICA, and in the same year was selected for the Klaus Moje Glass award at Canberra glassworks, where he first started expanding into using neon and installation, focusing on the currency of glass as an area of contemporary practice. This experimental position was acknowledged by curator and writer Robert Cook in “Being ‘mediumed’: Louis Grant and Spence Messih”, published in 'Glass Now’, Issue 334 Summer 2022-23, Art Monthly Australasia.
Grant was awarded the National Emerging Art Glass Prize (Highly Commended) in 2020 at Wagga Wagga Art Gallery and presented at the renowned Talente 2022 at Internationale Handwerkmesse, Munich. In 2022, he presented his first solo exhibition; Breakable Heaven, at Canberra Contemporary Art Space, supported by ArtsACT funding. This was followed by a solo show, awash, at UNSW Galleries as part of program celebrating the UN International year of glass, and inclusion in the Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize. Gaining momentum, across 2023 his work is included in multiple group shows including Canberra Glassworks, Pari ARI, Sydenham International, and Craft ACT: Craft + Design Centre and presenting his first commercial gallery solo; so I’ll say words I don’t believe, at Sabbia Gallery.
CV available upon request.