JAZZ GRANT
SMOKE FORGETS THE EARTH
VC Projects is proud to present ‘Smoke Forgets the Earth’, Jazz Grant’s debut solo exhibition exploring the roots of her Anglo- Jamaican heritage through collaged archival stills and video work.
The show takes the audience through the verdant beauty of Jamaica’s countryside, entangled with more subdued industrial British landscapes. Visually depicted in “Two Men Take a Walk”, the Northern English countryside (a familiar surrounding from Jazz’s childhood) is weaved into the forefront of the tropical vista. Seemingly threatened by menacing clouds that imply an encroaching catastrophe as figures emerge, unaware of the chaos that surrounds them.
Grant explores the unreliability of British imperial memory in the Caribbean in archives evoking a nostalgic yet propagandistic colonial era. And the cost and delusion of taming nature is signalled in eerie, hybrid animations: the toppling of giant, concrete flask-shaped cooling towers from Yorkshire’s decommissioned power stations. “The great feat of engineering had destroyed an ancient ecosystem. In the name of progress, wildlife was cleansed, the myriad species sent into exile.”
Collision, cohesion and an unsettling beauty haunts this series of works. It is a production of beguiling hand-cut collages and animations that encapsulate the essence of the artist through her roots.
About Jazz Grant
Jazz Grant is a female British artist who mainly works in the medium of non-digital collage and stop animation. Her craft was originally honed through studying Menswear at the London College of Fashion - where the non digital pattern making and compositional work evolved from fabric, and
onto paper.
Grant’s artwork creation is an intricate process that is as important as the finished piece. Each aspect of the collage is carefully sourced/photographed, printed, scanned and individually hand-cut. Through an intuitive method of curation/elimination and placement, the piece can start to form an aesthetic and meaningful conclusion that visually satisfies the original ideation of the work.
Creating in collage produces work that is tactile in process and outcome. Based on a composition in consideration of space, colour, material and theme - through elements personally shot by Jazz, and/or archival sourced imagery. Each texture and grain celebrated, and forming important layers and visual stories within the piece.
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Jazz Grant (b. 1992 London, UK) lives and works in Margate, Kent. Studied Menswear Fashion at London College of Fashion (2014 - 2016). Recent exhibitions and upcoming exhibitions; Smoke Forgets the Earth, VC Projects, London (upcoming solo exhibition ‘24); Black Star, Strada Gallery, NYC (‘24); The World Smiles with You, Opera Gallery, London (‘24); HBH Gallery (‘24); Soho House (23’); Small Hours, Alice Black Gallery, London (‘23) ; Book of HOV, Brooklyn Public Library, NYC (‘23); On Love, Home by Ronan Mckenzie, London (22’); Before Anyone Else, Burberry Shipstore, London (‘22); The Harder They Come, Kingston JA (22’); J Hammond Projects/OOF, Balls, London (21’); Cutting at Lemons for Freckles, Rear Sq Gallery, Norwich (21’); Mushrooms, Rue Turenne, Paris (21’). Her unique style and craft has lead to her creating a mural for Jay Z’s Book of HOV, NYC exhibition, artwork for the front cover of Dazed magazine and collaborations with brands and artists such as Celeste, Noname, Burberry, Gucci, Hermès and adidas, and in magazines such as The Face, Love Magazine, Perfect, Elephant, It’s Nice That and Creative Review. Her work sits in art collections such as; Soho House and Roc Nation.
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Press Release here
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