Alexandra Grant on How 'Storytelling' Connects Her to Keanu Reeves: 'At the Heart of What We Both Do' (Exclusive)

"We both care about people and we care about characters," the visual artist told PEOPLE at the Los Angeles Beverly Arts Icon Awards on Friday

Alexandra Grant is opening up about how her and boyfriend Keanu Reeves' artistic worlds are alike.

Speaking with PEOPLE at the Los Angeles Beverly Arts Icon Awards on Friday, the 50-year-old visual artist said "storytelling is at the heart of what we both do."

"My work is much more of a private performance, but I have a text that I interpret in the studio into a painting, into an object," Grant explained, adding of her John Wick beau, 59, "He takes the text in private and then turns it into a performance in public."

"There's a relationship," she added. "We're both, at the heart, readers and researchers. We both care about people and we care about characters."

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Related: Alexandra Grant Opens Up About 'Kind' Boyfriend Keanu Reeves: 'He's Such an Inspiration to Me' (Exclusive)

Grant, who was an honoree at the event, went on to compare the creative worlds of herself and Reeves — whom she previously collaborated with on the 2011 book Ode to Happiness — using a metaphor.

“I think there's a lot of similarities,” she began. “Sometimes I feel like, to make a film, as we're seeing now in the strike, that it's a cruise ship. Everyone is dependent on everyone else. You can't go off and— being an artist, maybe at the beginning of my career, I was in a kayak on the sea of creativity. Now maybe it's a small speedboat, but it's still a lot more nimble.”

“I think that is very inspiring for him,” the artist said of the actor, and the “cruise ship”-like nature of making a movie.

Grant continued, “To make a film, you require hundreds of people. To be an artist, you don't. You require one. You require a community to get the work into the world, but not to actually make it. I think part of the inspiration is the differences of scale.”

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She also said what she "love(s) about Keanu and our exchange is that we're pushing each other to build new roads."

"Seeing the other person's problem-solving is inspiring, like, ‘Oh, well, okay, this one, that's a cul-de-sac. How do I try this other thing?’ ” Grant added. “He's such an inspiration to me. He's so creative, he's so kind. He works so hard.”

According to Grant, her art has “absolutely” changed since she began dating the Matrix star.

“I had a studio visit a few years ago, and this very kind, very high-level person said, 'I can see that your work has gotten happier,’ ” she remembered. “That's real. We're all human beings. We're animals. We're expressing from where we are and certainly feeling happier. I think the work is happier.”

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