Johannesburg

STEVENSON is pleased to present People and Time, an exhibition of new paintings by Ian Grose. 

The artist has written:

Five or six months ago I started making paintings from quick drawings I'd made of people I've seen around. With drawing, I realised I could get down the 'basics' in less time than it takes to pick up a brush and mix a colour. The painting usually takes place a few days later, after I've had some time to look at the drawings, think about what connotations or image-echoes might exist in each picture, and how I'd like to go about painting them. Everyone, to some degree, is used to being the subject of a photo. But it seems the artificiality of remaining still for a long time makes people lapse into opposite states: either sitting there 'as oneself' or as a fictional, imaginary, different person; either vulnerable or confident (every confident pose, after a few hours, becomes vulnerable); either conscious of being scrutinised or being so bored they forget about it entirely, presenting their face to me as if I wasn't there.

As for me, once I've started there are so many problems to resolve in so little time that I'm able to avoid, I hope, the self-consciousness that ruins paintings. There's a feeling or a formal idea that I'm going for, and I'm doing my best to embody it in the material. It's good to feel like I'm just along for the ride, and that the resulting painting, despite all the stages of planning and execution, comes as a total surprise.

People and Time is Grose’s seventh solo show with the gallery, and his first in Parktown North. The exhibition opens on Saturday 11 February, 10am to 1pm.