Tag: spencer hibert

Vivid Visions now showing at Compound Gallery

August 3rd, 2012 | No Comments

[portfolio_slideshow]

My current group show, Vivid Visions, opened in Portland last night. Above are the first images I’m able to share. Thanks to my good friend — and fellow Vivid Visions artist — Spencer Hibert for graciously furnishing these photos.

The complete collection of works on view in the show is now available at Compound Gallery’s web site. I sincerely invite you to check out this online catalog. In addition to my own six paintings, you’ll find an impressive collection of imaginative works by Arbito, Buff Monster, Oliver Hibert, Spencer Hibert, and Martin Ontiveros. Lots of tripped out colors and imagery!

I will be adding more installation photos of my work as they become available.


Next show: Vivid Visions at Compound Gallery

June 5th, 2012 | No Comments

vivid visions coming to compound gallery in portland, oregon
A vivid vision: One of my newest paintings, which remains untitled, might just be showing in Portland this summer.


An extremely bright spot in my summer will be my involvement in Vivid Visions, a group art show curated by my great friend and fellow artist Oliver Hibert.

What makes this show such a bright spot? The seven artists in Vivid Visions use amped-up, fluorescent paint-powered palettes. Hanging our work together in one room is a gargantuan guarantee to make eyeballs melt!

Vivid Visions will open August 2, 2012 at Compound Gallery, which is located in downtown Portland, Oregon. The six other artists participating in Vivid Visions are Buff Monster, Jesse Hibert, Oliver Hibert, Spencer Hibert, Martin Ontiveros, and Pinky.


Visual artist Spencer Hibert wins Big Brain Award

May 23rd, 2010 | No Comments

Grant Wiggins Spencer Hibert
Yours truly, pretending to have won the award, with Spencer Hibert (right), who actually won the award. Photo expertly taken by Tara Logsdon.


I congratulate my friend (and Soyal Gallery co-director) Spencer Hibert on winning the Big Brain Award, in the category of visual arts, from the Phoenix New Times last night. The award recognizes inventive “emerging creatives” in the Greater Phoenix, Arizona area. Read about the award recipients.

I witnessed Spencer’s coronation at last night’s awards ceremony, held at Madcap Theater in Tempe — and I must say it was really a fantastic moment. I am very happy for Spencer and wish him all of the best with his artistic pursuits.

After the awards, I cajoled Spencer into taking a photograph with me, pretending to have won the award.

One of Spencer’s plastic Miigii creatures was featured on the cover of the May 20 Phoenix New Times; the article about him in that issue also mentions my solo show at Soyal Gallery: “Several of the pieces in the gallery’s first show (super-graphic paintings by Grant Wiggins) actually sold, though the two-month-old gallery’s far from becoming a Marshall Way mainstay.”

Congrats, Spencer! Awesome show! Great job!


Solo Scottsdale art show to open April 1

February 13th, 2010 | No Comments

I have some super-exciting news to share with you: This April I shall be having my first solo art show in more than three years — and it shall be a Scottsdale art show, in downtown Scottsdale’s Marshall Way art gallery district, no less. For me, this is a dream come true; I have always wanted to find a way into the Scottsdale market, but the parameters never seemed right.

The venue for this Scottsdale art show will be Soyal, at 4200 N. Marshall Way. Opening night is Thursday, April 1. The show will continue through the end of month, although we’re still deciding upon an end date. What’s more, this will be Soyal’s grand-opening show.

Plans have materialized very quickly. My longtime friend Spencer Hibert (brother of Oliver Hibert, with whom I’ve shown many times) called me Wednesday afternoon to invite me to have the show. Because this will be the gallery’s first exhibition, I was tremendously honored to be the first artist in the gallery’s lineup.

Up until that point, Spencer and I had been collaborating off and on for months on a mural for an art gallery / videogame arcade / vegan donut shop that he wanted to start. See sketches for the mural. As fate would have it, a bigger and brighter opportunity presented itself in downtown Scottsdale. At Soyal, Spencer and business partner Emmett Potter will be exhibiting emerging artists from around the world, bringing work to Scottsdale that metropolitan Phoenix has not yet witnessed in person.

What does Soyal mean? As Spencer explains, Soyal is the Hopi term for a yearly solstice celebration in which a party is thrown to distract the plumed snake from swallowing the sun. “It symbolizes a new beginning of growth. And that is exactly what I want to bring to Scottsdale … to bring something new to the scene,” he writes.

As for me, I’m still trying out names for the Scottsdale art show, and deciding upon how I want to lay it out. “Circles with Corners,” what I called my Fall 2009 collection, is up for consideration. So is “Face the Future” and “Exact and Intact.” Plus, I have quite a bit of wall space to work with, so I’d like to take advantage of that, and make an immersive experience for the viewer. I want to go beyond rectangles and squares on a wall. Then again, I have just under seven weeks to pull this off, so I have to be realistic about my goals.

As things develop, I’ll be posting updates to this space. Be sure to sign up for blog updates if you’re interested in receiving them.


A slew of sketches for the Cream Gallery mural

June 14th, 2009 | 20 Comments

Moments ago I finished a set of preliminary sketches for Spencer Hibert’s much-anticipated Cream art gallery / video arcade / coffee shop / vegan donut emporium. Spencer is looking for something that he calls Aztec Atari.

With those two concepts to guide me, I produced the following set of sketches. The colors are fairly arbitrary and don’t really matter at this point; they can be changed in infinite ways. I view the process of choosing colors as a separate project anyway.

Regardless, whatever doesn’t wind up in the mural will probably land in a painting, or two, or 14 … who knows! It’s not the end result I’m concerned about, it’s the process … and I’ve had a lot of fun making these. I found the project very challenging.

Grant’s note of 16 June 09:

I just tended to version 2 by employing Spencer’s guidance (see comments). The first image shown below represents my interpretation of his guidance (version 2a). Below that, I decided to shake up the colors a bit, just to push the idea further (version 2b). Enough versions already, right?

Version 2a

Version 2b

Version 2c


Anyway, here are the original 7 sketches:

Version 2

Version 1a

Version 1b

Version 1c

Version 1d

Version 1e

Version 3

Do you, fair reader, have a favorite? Your insight is welcome.

Now it’s break time!


Painting on a Friday afternoon

March 30th, 2008 | 2 Comments

Lots of cool art happened and good laughs were had on Friday when I paid a visit on my old friends Oliver and Spencer Hibert.

Because we don’t hang out nearly enough, we’ve decided to try to get together to paint / draw / doodle / hang out whenever convenient. I think I painted 12 hours on Friday: five before I went over to Spencer’s and seven when I was there.

One of the things I was working on was this pattern painting (shown at right), which is almost done. I had no plan for which color combination to use, so I laid out a few choices and had my friends choose for me. (Have to leave some room for randomness!)

Originally Oliver picked out orange, brown and light blue; but after I explained that I’ve used that combo far too many times, I switched it up to red, brown, and light blue. Long story short, it turned out to be an eyesore, in a good way.

spencer hibertoliver hibert
Spencer at left, Oliver at right, refusing to pose for the camera.


But it was really good to get caught up with Oliver and Spencer, bringing our energy together. Oliver and I have been through so much together — highs (Arizona Biennials) and lows (the disintegration of The TRA25 Capsule experiment) — and I’ve really enjoyed getting to know Spencer better. Our work has evolved into very different spaces over the past two or three years, but we’ve only learned from that.

It was all high comedy, punctuated by pizza from Hungry Howie’s. (Q.: “What’s for dinner?” A.: “Any flyers with discounts hanging on the doorknob?”) Just kind of underscores how important it is for artists to have other artists as friends. Especially here in the outskirts of metropolitan Phoenix, where the culture for art is pretty … well … alienating.

One of the things we talked about was originality … how almost impossible it is to do something absolutely new anymore. Why burn yourself out trying to be new? Instead, just be yourself, and make what you like.

Can’t wait to get back together with them again, which may happen Tuesday evening.