Oyster / Clare Grill

About

Clare Grill’s abstract paintings refuse both intellectual pretension and clear meaning. They offer instead a cache of open-ended impressions, hovering somewhere between the familiar and the unnameable. Each canvas’ monochromatic foundation is punctuated by whisps and hieroglyphs of contrasting tones, meticulously reworked and rearranged through a measured process of intuition. Grill does not force her paintings to conform to any preconceived ideal, but rather allows the painting process to dictate the final composition of each work. A wash of veiled color or unexpected divot in the linen’s surface draws out the painting’s form. The translucent and washed-out compositions bring contradictory sensations into harmony, evoking both disembodied lightness and rich material texture, domestic comfort and somber reflection. Resisting easy interpretation, Grill’s paintings beckon the viewer to sit with complex and unresolved questions of memory and the passage of time.

Grill draws inspiration from an assortment of handmade documents. Birth certificates, family heirlooms, and baptismal records become a rich archive of introspection in her hands. Over the past several years, eighteenth and nineteenth century embroidery samplers have become particularly central to her work. Made by young girls to demonstrate facility with decorative needlework, these samplers evoke both a meticulous sense of craft and a sensitivity towards domestic labor. Grill does not directly recreate these embroideries in her paintings, but rather translates her immediate impressions of them into small-scale drawings, slowly accreting a library of sketches which provide the grammar for her larger-scale, painted works. While Grill’s paintings channel the marks of these hand-me-down embroideries and heirlooms, their intimations are particular to her individual process.

Grill’s paintings index periods of slow endurance. When considering the title of this show, Oyster, the artist addresses this process of becoming: “A friend who is a ceramics artist recently was describing an aspect of her process as taking something that's an irritant and making something beautiful out of it. Like sand becoming pearl. I feel like my paintings are very much concerned with letting irritants, things I can't control, into the process of their making. Especially in the case of these new ones which are made with a medium that is thick and slow and really drags on the nubby imperfections of linen, highlighting variations in its weave. I began many of them using combinations of old paint piles about to dry up on my palette. I hate to throw paint away, so I mixed together leftover colors to find new ones. And since the paint had been around awhile it had dried bits, and surprise traces of other colors in it, which got spread onto the linen too, making their own little marks and pathways. I like to highlight these ‘irritants’ and let them be on display just as much as the shapes and marks I put there.”

Although borne of Grill’s intensive looking, these works do not project her vision of the world onto others, but rather serve as public vectors for free contemplation. At their core, these paintings are attempts at translating her experience of making them.

Clare Grill (born 1979, Chicago, IL) received her MFA from the Pratt Institute in 2005 and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2011. Solo exhibitions include Derek Eller Gallery, Zieher Smith & Horton Gallery (New York), Reserve Ames (Los Angeles, CA), Soloway Gallery (Brooklyn, NY), and Diane Rosenstein Gallery, (Los Angeles, CA). Her work has been reviewed in Artforum, ArtNews, Hyperallergic, the Brooklyn Rail, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The Boston Globe. Clare Grill lives and works in Queens, NY.

Location:                                    M+B Doheny, 470 North Doheny Drive, Los Angeles, California 90048

Show Title:                                 Clare Grill: Oyster

Exhibition Dates:                         May 21 – June 30, 2022

Opening Reception:                     Saturday, May 21, 6 – 8 pm

Gallery Hours:                             Tuesday – Saturday, 10am – 6pm, and by appointment

Social Media:                              @mblosangeles @claregrill

For all inquiries, please contact info@mbart.com.