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SALT LAKE CITY — Grant Fuhst is an artist with a calling.
The stirring surrealist paintings he creates tell their own stories, inspired by the literature the artist loves.
“I have been creating art since I was about five years old,” Fuhst said. “I have no formal training, but it is all I have ever wanted to do. Or been very good at.”
Inspired by “anything and everything,” Fuhst says his primary source of influence comes from literature.
Fuhst has developed his own style. He started by working with oils, but now prefers the way acrylic paints allow him to layer. He favors mixed media projects which, he said, are easier with acrylics.
He has a small studio at Poor Yorick’s art collective in Salt Lake City. 
Grant Fuhst
“My space is an incredible mess while I am working,” Fuhst said. His current project, a series dedicated to spirituality in new forms, is his favorite work to date.
“I'm trying to codify new paths to spirituality that do not rely on religious institutions and old myths and fantasies,” Fuhst said.
He said he does not worry much about how his art is interpreted, but whether the message is strong enough to leave an audience with something.
“For me, art is an open-ended discussion that starts with the completed painting and continues with every new person who views it,” Fuhst said. “I've had some amazing responses from people who have brought their own personal interpretation to my works which had little to do with why I created them, but still captured the essence of the work.”
Although art is not his full-time job, Fuhst makes time to create his dreamlike acrylics and sell them to fans and friends.
Amanda is a writer and pop culture fanatic who studied journalism at BYU. She has written for a candy store, a US Senator, Deseret News, an art museum, Entertainment Weekly magazine, a beauty company, KSL and several artists and musicians. Find her on Twitter @amandataylor88.
