Kainoa Gruspe
Degree: MFA Sculpture
University: Slade School of Fine Art
Graduation Year: 2022
New Blood Art Commentary
Come with openness to the elements at play to Kainoa Gruspe’s work spangled with delight and with earth. Across a gauze canvas in the shape of a rainbow, dirt and paint are moulded and flecked, as if spontaneously. These works are rooted, embedded, entangled; eclectic, and foregrounding materiality. The artist’s explorations are informed by natural context, he’s originally from Hawaii. Gruspe has also made hats and musical instruments, and this knack for making functional objects is at play in these dimensional artworks.
In them there’s a real sense of surveying one’s environment. The available information comes from different sources, those major: science, religion, philosophy, and minor: dirt, small stones, rope, bits lost and found. These works are fibrous and organic; imagery, if present, is secondary. The physicality is primary: the transit of materials across the field of the known, leaving and re-entering under different auspices of understanding. The welding and webbing of materials is temporary before new connections are made in the dissolution of the old. As an attitude to the world, these works imbue, wonder is useful.
Artist Statement
Kainoa Gruspe's practice comes from painting but has been branching out to include different modes of making, including woodworking, sewing and embroidery, hat making. What he is looking for in his work is a sense of real life, and an exploration of how that has been understood. Topics such as quantum physics, religious dogmas, and existential philosophy are areas of interest in his work, but so are interesting looking bits of dirt, a good chisel, and chewing gum left on the street. Imagery is present but only really serves to provide context, the physical qualities and relationships of the materials and actions is where most of the work is happening. Gruspe is from Honolulu, Hawaii, and currently lives and works in London. He received a BFA from the University of Hawaii and an MFA from the Slade School of Fine Art
Competitions, Prizes & Awards
(2022) Almacantar Award
(2021) Elizabeth Greenshields Grant