Stanley Grandon is a poker player and an artist. He plays poker weekly in local tournaments at charity poker rooms in the Metro Detroit, MI and Boca Raton, FL areas. He describes his Poker Face Art as a technique under the guise of expressionism in which the manner of painting of the poker players are distorted, or exaggerated and colors are vibrant and intensified for emotive and expressive purposes.

For example, Stan explains that while sitting at the table for a game of poker, although the players are friendly, while during the playing of a hand the players are very competitive and the goal is to take one another out. The reading of the others players game faces contributes to the choices one will make determining which card to play. He also describes that some of his figures in his paintings can appear monstrous and this characterization is realistic during a serious game of poker. If ones chips are down, you may see it on their face the consequences and fear of possible economic or prideful loss. The win of poker for one player may not seem as obvious as the loss and that is the nature of the game of poker….one can never tell or show their poker face.

Grandon’s was recently featured in Card Player Magazine and his works have been in exhibitions in the Detroit Art Museum and in the Boca Raton Art Museum. His work is also in many private collections and he recently won an award for the best painting in the Burlini Art Academy.