Art & Art History
Voices: Simon Grennan and Chris Sperandio
Gallery 400 Lecture Room
1240 West Harrison Street
Simon Grennan and Chris Sperandio (born 1964) produce digitally crafted comic art, often based on the everyday experiences of their friends, colleagues, and stories acquired from other people. These include stories from prison inmates (Life in Prison), art school students (Art School Superstars), mysteries collected on a train ride in the United Kingdom (Buried Treasure), and stories of the supernatural solicited through newspaper ads in New York, Glasgow, and Bordeaux (Fantastic Sh*t). They have made comics and animated films for museums internationally, including MoMA PS1, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, and London’s Institute of Contemporary Art.
Sperandio and Grennan have been collaborating on artworks for over 10 years. Sperandio has taught at Princeton and, although he currently resides in New York, teaches part-time at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He received a BFA in printmaking from West Virginia University and an MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Grennan lives in the United Kingdom. He holds a BA from Reading University, UK; an MFA from University of Illinois at Chicago; and is completing a PhD in Art History at the University of the Arts, London.