Andrew Grassie The documentation of a small act: Sticks 1, 2024

Andrew Grassie's new series of works draws on the artist's interest in the documentation of small-scale modernist sculpture in the first part of the 20th century. Grassie began to stage still lifes and to photograph them in such as way to approximate the aesthetic of those seemingly casual photographs. The artist produced a number of assemblages that faintly echo early modernist works, using common items, among them sticks, small objects in simple geometric shapes, or even potatoes. From photos of these groupings set in his studio, the new paintings developed.

The new series of paintings constitute an alternative and imaginary history of art: a painting of a photograph of a sculpture assembled from everyday items in such a way that it recalls the way modernist sculpture was at one point photographed.

Grassie’s paintings are almost always based on photographs the artist has taken himself or in some cases found. Often they have been elaborately staged, although this effort is veiled by the ostensibly unassuming matter-of-factness the small, precisely painted works exude. The works are executed with tempera, a technique associated with pre-Renaissance panel paintings anteceding the development of oil paint. Tempera dries very rapidly and remains relatively sheer. To create cover and solid colors therefore many layers are needed. The final image is modulated through the application of multiple different glazes.