Artist and Winthrop Student, Grant Mahan displayed his MFA thesis proposal exhibition back in November of 2021 and is currently working on his academic paper for his thesis.
“So, I’m currently in a place where I’m navigating my starting thesis, which is like a year long project, basically, right? This basically perfect paper, you know, academic paper,” Mahan explains. “And I’m kind of in this space where I’m struggling because it needs to be very concise. And it needs to be about like one or two ideas. And I tend to work all over the place.”
Mahan has found that creating his work first and research second has allowed him to conceptualize his work and later reflect.
“I was listening to an artist talk the other day, or a podcast about artists who’s a teacher at Queens University in New York, and he was saying how the academic format is kind of, you have your research and your concept,” Mahan said. “And then you execute your work based on your research in concept. But I’m kind of on the flip side of that. I kind of execute my work. And I kind of have things, somewhat planned, but it’s mostly intuitive. And then after making the work, I reflect on it.”
Currently, Mahan is exploring themes in his artwork such as queerness, spirituality and mental health. These themes have heavily impacted his life as well.
“Under the umbrella of identity, there’s queerness, there’s mental health. And then there’s spirituality, which I think all intersect,” Mahan said. “I was raised in a very religious environment, and then coming out as queer, there’s obviously conflict there. And then in the mental health territory, it’s interesting, there’s a lot of conversation about looking toward being in touch with your spirituality in some way, whatever that means.”
Mahan’s focus in art is the visual genre of abstract art, which includes using shapes, forms and textures to achieve its effects.
“Abstraction is kind of getting up the roots of concept, instead of painting before was about kind of having a window to the world outside,” Mahan explains. “But abstraction began finding a way to record what’s in your head, mentally.”
Bethany Salisbury, who is also a part of the MFA program here at Winthrop, has had the chance to learn and work with Mahan. This is her first year here at Winthrop, studying studio art. Like Mahan, her art focuses on mental health.
“My work is mostly about mental health, mental illness and the nonhuman signifiers that we use, like animals and plants just sort of symbolizes concepts within our own narrative. And to explain ourselves to other people,” Salisbury explains. “So I made my living as a pet portrait artist, but making art, a little bit more about specific disorders using animal symbolism drawing from sort of late antiquity, stories and myths to kind of work through this series in particular.”
Salisbury has been working on incorporating animal symbolism with sculpting and had Mahan be a subject in one of her pieces.
“So Grant is pretty open about his bipolar disorder. And I love that he’s in his own art. So I wanted to use people that were open about their mental health issues. So he was a subject, so he related to the Bulldog in the dandy lion,” she explained. “And then he got asked people like what mental or what’s symbols, they thought of their mental illness, and then what symbols in your society saw. So society, he thought, like the pig, and the lead part of Danny Lyons. So the symbols for society are the outside, and then for himself, and their selves are on the inside. So kind of like trying all sorts of different things.”
Salisbury has nothing but high praise for the work Mahan has done here at his time in Winthrop.
“I have a lot of respect for him as a painter and an artist, he has a really hard skill set. So, he’s really a very formal painter. So he’s very skilled with working with the paint,” Salisbury said.
Salisbury has also been able to learn from Mahan as well.
“And even though I feel like I’ve been a painter for 20 years, I feel like he knows more about paint in and of itself,” she said. “So I think he has a really great working knowledge of color form, kind of surface level aesthetics, that then he also brings spirituality.”
Mahan’s work has touched his fellow classmates and professors. Professor of sculpture, Shaun Cassidy, has been working at Winthrop for 23 years and had Mahan in his class last semester.
Professor Cassidy enjoys seeing students bring originality and try new techniques in their work as he’s seen with Mahan.
“One of the things that’s exciting about working with graduate students at the beginning of their program is they’re really trying to explore a lot of different ideas, try new things out, and not just repeat work that they made as an undergraduate,” Professor Cassidy explained. “So it was interesting working with Grant, you know, he’s an energetic, bright student.”
Professor Cassidy is excited to see Mahan’s work continue to excel in the future.
“So last semester, Grant was working in printmaking, he was working in painting. Towards the end, he experimented a little bit with found objects and color. So, it’s a very exciting time for a graduate student,” Professor Cassidy explained. “He’s interested in trying to break down stereotypical approaches to uses of color. I’m particularly excited to see him create larger, more ambitious works that explore a space between painting and sculpture.”
To check out more of Grants work you can find him on Instagram: @the.instagrant
