Cape Town

STEVENSON is pleased to present Novel Arrangements, an exhibition of new paintings by Ian Grose.

The works in Novel Arrangements, ten oil paintings on linen, amplify the artist’s ongoing inquiry into the nature of painting and notions of perception. As before, his imagery at first appears to be depictions of textiles, yet for these works, the image is the distillation of a complex process of photography, drawing, printmaking and digital manipulation, culminating in suggestive forms and spaces. The paintings in this body of work - Grose’s largest to date in scale - temper abstraction with a reductive figuration, disrupting our assumptions on observation and preconception through surfaces simultaneously vivid and diffuse. Grose writes:

Recently I've been drawn to colours that don't seem to have names and textures that do. At the same time, I've been looking at folk art, Greek and Egyptian art. I like how the figures and relationships are semi-legible, which makes me feel that I both do and do not occupy the same world as them. A gesture of generosity; a simple action; a pose struck. The feeling of continuity inspired by the sense of our common embodiment has been a balm in a time of change and uncertainty.

And yet, my eye slides over those images, wanting those nameless colours. So I've taken them (and images like them, featuring people I know) as the basis for constructing some visual and metaphorical puzzles, exploring resonances with a broader range of painting. I have unanswered questions, mostly concerning colour, which are the reason for returning to my studio every day. Like most painters, I want to make the eye take notice, and to understand the mechanics of that subtle tug.

While answering those questions (or better, letting them multiply), the figures are there. Their glimmers of personality keep me company, no two instances alike. They've made me think of how people come together, by circumstance and affinity, the space between them having a unique shape and texture. Sometimes that negative shape is pleasing. Other times, some judicious editing (addition, subtraction) can do wonders.

Novel Arrangements is Grose's eighth solo exhibition with the gallery, following People and Time in Johannesburg in 2023.

The exhibition opens Saturday 23 August, 10am to 1pm, concurrent with shows by Steven Cohen and Moshekwa Langa.