Mark Grotjahn – Opaque Landscapes

Blum is pleased to present “Opaque Landscapes”, Los Angeles-based artist Mark Grotjahn’s tenth solo exhibition with the gallery. In his new body of work, Grotjahn uses various modes of paint treatment and application to form dense, abstract compositions of vibrating lines across pools of striking colors to form what he is calling the “Opaque Landscapes”. Using brushes on linen and without the cardboard substrate that he has become known for, these new paintings have an immediate and fluid presence which communicates a conscious move toward a more improvisational style.

As a logical next step from his “Skull” paintings (2016–2024) in which Grotjahn riffed on and decorated over renderings of skulls in excited lines and screaming colors, the “Opaque Landscapes” series sees him moving to completely obliterate the need for an image as an anchor. Although called landscapes, the new paintings do not draw from an image or observation of nature. Grotjahn’s primary consideration in these paintings is not a rigorous plan or strategy for a picture, but, instead, a reflection of his own formal and sensory response as he builds each composition. By allowing himself the freedom and play to open up his process this way, he is able to let the paintings evolve without restriction.

It is typical for Grotjahn to home in on a method for mark making within each body of work that, for him, is both visually satisfying and mechanically reassuring. While his marks in the “Backcountry” paintings (2021–2024) are mostly made using cutting, hard-edged strokes – conversely, the fields, daubs, and strands of colors in the “Opaque Landscapes” are made with a considered intimacy, hugging inward rather than exploding out. Compact, solid areas of color are applied with soft, rippling edges. At times slivers and gaps where the shapes do not touch reveal ghostly traces of paint that were either washed on or sanded away. Fault-like lines and quick dashes carve through stacked forms to create complex strata, giving the paintings their landscape-like qualities while also conjuring the expressive style of Kandinsky and other early Bauhaus artists.

The edges of the paintings, each contained within a rectilinear space, are fuzzy and surrounded by a border of linen, some with uneven or frayed cuts. By revealing the mechanics of the painting and allowing the roughness to be visible Grotjahn further reinforces his embrace of a more essential practice without betraying his confidence and proficiency as a painter.

Mark Grotjahn lives and works in Los Angeles.

Gallery hours Tue–Sat 12 – 6 pm

Exhibition Duration 20 September – 26 October 2024

www.blum-gallery.com

Location:
Blum Gallery
Harajuku Jingu-no-mori 5F, 1-14-34 Jingumae, Shibuya
150-0001 Tokyo
Japan