Gerald Artist spotlight – Grande Dame
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03 Dec 2020
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Name – Grande Dame AKA Tiff McGinnis
Studio – Grande Dame
Location – London, UK
Geralds –Boo Boo Bee Bee, Peggy Gerald and Kushi Gerald
Grande Dame, aka Tiff McGinnis, is a self-taught multimedia artist: who writes music, creates animations and makes an array of art in different mediums from the images in her animations.
She fell into an art and design career by accident. Originally moving to the UK to pursue music in 2001, her budget to create music videos for herself was very low (GD was formerly a electro-rock one woman band called Crazy Girl) Teaching herself how to animate (citing Youtube tutorials, silkscreen classes and her creative household growing up as tools that inspired her to to develop her craft) allowed her to produce her own colourful videos for her songs. Her unique style gained attention with people- whenever she had created a new animation a JPEG still from the video was emailed out. People were requesting for her to print them so they could buy them and the demand was huge. Obviously there was a market for her style of work so around five years ago she produced her first prints from characters from ‘The Shakes’ video (see below)
In Feb 2012 she had her first solo exhibition at PR giant Ketchum Pleon’s corporate headquarters in London’s Spitalfields, and October 23, 2014 Tiff had her solo exhibition – Grande Dame’s Voodoo On You (original art inspired by her music) – upstairs at ink-d gallery Brighton.
Describing herself as a self-taught multimedia artist: an audio/visual storyteller, who writes music, creates animations and makes an array of art in different mediums from the images in her animations. Her process is laborious, starting with sound, then moving image, then still art.
Originally from the Deep South of Columbus, Georgia Grande Dame was heavily influenced by the rich sounds of the Mississippi Delta, psychedelic cartoons, iconography, pinball, Art Nouveau, 60’s black light and Fillmore East Posters – all of which are evident in her creations.
“Everything you see is fantastically printed, illustrated and designed by Grande Dame, from the wallpaper and the curtains to the framed artwork, the candles and the vinyl on the record player.” People of Print talking about Grande Dame's Voodoo On You exhibition
For the infamous Gerald exhibition Grande Dame not only created 1 incredibly dog but 3. With her vast talents and various styles the 3D paper dog sculptures all look entirely different. The work of a true artist who can turn her hand to anything. Some of the dog designs are instantly recognisable due to the signature styles of their creators but Boo, Boo Be, Be, Peggy Gerald and Kushi Gerald (as pictured above) are all distinctive and divergent as well as being true to the artists style, spirit and techniques.
Grande Dames 1st Gerald is No 39 Boo Boo Bee Bee
Originally planned to be a traditional quilt/patchwork design style, Grande Dame had a last minute change of heart as she wanted to create something more light-hearted and humorous and to also honour her own beloved pooch (the star of the show with his cute little face all over Gerald) and so Boo Boo Bee Bee was born.
“Originally a patchwork quilt pattern, at the last minute I decided to change it and inject some humour. With this design I took inspiration from my beloved Bichon Frise, Boo Boo Bee Bee. I repeated his adorable face along with pink lipsticks, to create a landscape of the always funny doggie lipsticks.”
Gerald number 2 is No 40 Peggy Gerald
For Gerald number 2 Grande Dame pushed herself outside of the limitations of her usual style. She wanted to experiment and take a diversion from her usual colour palette and decided to push herself into foreign territory by just working with monochrome colours. Inspiration was drawn from the swinging London in the 1960’s, Pink Floyd’s UFO Club, Carnaby Street, Mary Quant, and model du jour – Peggy Moffet of which the paper dog model is named after.
“I took a diversion from my usual colour palette and decided to push myself in foreign territory by only using black and white. I drew inspiration from swinging London in the 1960’s, Pink Floyd’s UFO Club, Carnaby Street, Mary Quant and model du jour Peggy Moffet.”
The 3rd and final Gerald from Grande Dame is N041. Kushi Gerald
Inspired by Hindu gods, Grande Dame decided to do it for the girls and make her own female version via the medium of paper dog. This Eastern inspired beauty is modelled on the God Hanuman who also happens to be the monkey God and incarnation of Lord Shiva. Grande Dame wanted to put her own spin on things and also make it a little more canine-led. Therefore Kushi, the Goddess Monkey Dog of happy living was born.
“I looked east towards Hindu deities and mysticism. Particularly the God Hanuman, the monkey God and incarnation of Lord Shiva. But I made a female version, Kushi, the Goddess Monkey Dog of happy living.”