Ann Grim (b. 1980 in Paris, France) is a multidisciplinary contemporary artist known for her conceptual and anticipative artwork. She was raised between Buenos Aires, Paris, Cape Town, Montevideo, London. After graduating L’atelier Met de Peninghen, and l’École du Louvre, she currently lives and works between London and Paris. Ann Grim explores the possibility of different future outcomes via the materialization and dematerialization of human consciousness. The complexity of human nature is the heart of her work. Ann Grim is inspired by the socio-economic structures and cycles that shape modern society, and she uses each of her artwork as a means of exploring social, cultural, and urban issues. Ann Grim explores the inner working of the modern condition. Her mediums and disciplines vary from films, sculptures, installations, paintings, design, to most recently virtual reality.
Three attributes to describe yourself and your artworks?
Visual Artist producing sophisticated and brutal artworks
Possible Futures / Fiction of anticipation / Human Kind mutations and migration / Tomorrow’s urban landscape
If you could have dinner with anyone in the world, dead or alive, who would you choose and why?
Camille Claudel, Frida Kahlo, Elisabeth Louise Vigée Lebrun, Sheila Hicks, Louise Bourgeois, Cindy Sherman… it would have to be a woman, artist, that had to fight to have her voice heard / their art known / and gain their autonomy…
Advice to your 15 year old self?
Do not doubt yourself, Study at Royal College of Art, Central Saint Martins College or Les Beaux-Arts de Paris, work hard, make each moment beautiful and never ever give up.
Why did you choose to be an artist?
I didn’t choose it.. it chose me. It is not always easy to take responsibility and assume the consequences, but it feels I am on the exact right path.
Are there certain artists, styles or movements you’ve drawn inspiration from? Please elaborate.
I have studied art history, kept on being curious and still learn a lot about the existing art, the question of art itself. Every bit and species of it inspires me as I believe the past dictates the future. The influence of it all is fatal… The question of the origin; the uncreated, fascinates me.
Can you talk about technique?
I use various technics and many mediums such as painting (acrylic, ink, and resin on canvas…), sculpture (engraved burnt wood), installations (metal, leather, shark jaws, printed tarpaulin…), digital (Video, QR codes, VR). I choose one accordingly, with extreme attention. Each medium and technique must enrich the purpose.
What do you want your viewers to take away from your work?
I would like to share a global vision based on various uchronia. I would like to travel the time with them and be able to give an aesthetic landscape of what tomorrow could look like.
If you weren’t an artist what else would you do?
Poet & author / choreograph & dancer / film director & comedian / compositor & musician… I couldn’t be if I couldn’t be an artist of some sort.
What was the last exhibit you went to that really stuck with you and why?
Irving Penn @ Grand Palais Paris Yesterday… it is the last one I saw… I was in great company and shared a fabulous moment of sensibility, poesy, technics, and reflection. It stung my eyes and felt good!
How would you describe the word ” ART “, What does it mean to you?
It is a very deep question! to keep it short; it is a rare and exceptional moment of creation close to sacred, transmitting fullness from the artist to the viewer. Maybe, it is a fragment of a higher level of consciousness delivered and shared.
Can you tell us about a difficult moment that you overcame?
Lately, a goodbye kiss felt difficult, but it came with a very powerful energy that I managed to overcome by transforming it into new artworks… it is for me an achievement.
Do you have any quotes from previous artists which are important for you? A few words of wisdom that you hold onto or remember?
“IMAGINATION IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN KNOWLEDGE” EINSTEIN