The Drawers - Angela Grossmann Commentary written by Julie Oakes
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WWW.Women
Angela
Grossmann Beauty is fleeting and the depiction of the world of beauty is an attempt to unfasten beauty from the embrace in the passage of time. This has been the subject of convoluted philosophical treatises that turn back into themselves in the ambitious task of pinning down what might be described as an allure comparable to an aura - outside of the subject, emanating from the matter and overriding the temporal. It is this elusive aura that is depicted in Grossmann's work and she does so by using the medium with metaphorical advantage. A drip, for instance, as it wanders leaves a trace in time, so does a spatter. The gestural application of paint speaks of a presence before solidification of the art work - that which becomes the arrested object. When energy is fastened to the object by way of the art making, there is room for desire to enter, an element of beauty. Grossmann, herself, could be described as an Alpha Girl (the title of a series by the artist made in 2004) for as one of the Young Romantic Painters, she entered the art scene as the girl amongst titans and had no trouble keeping up with the boys. With a dextrous hand and facile bravado she created a 'look' that made her dripping young women into 'it girls' - saucy, cheeky and self assured even in the midst of tears or a nervous breakdown. Her figures embody the range of human emotions, pathetic to pithy, that embody everything that the title Young Romantic Painters could have hoped to invoke. Lounging superbly in attitudes gothic, gauntly adolescent, and egotistically whimsical; Grosmann's figures capture all of the highs and lows of yearning for impossible beauty. Julie Oakes Copyright © 2008 Headbones Gallery |