Kainoa Gruspe’s three-person exhibition at My Pet Ram in New York.
His work received a thumbs up from one of the world’s most famous art critics, Jerry Saltz. A glance at the gallery’s Instagram page shows Saltz cheerily posing alongside Gruspe’s work.
My Pet Ram is proud to present “Raw Material,” an exhibition featuring works by Nanea Lum, Kainoa Gruspe, and Jan Dickey. This exhibition explores the three artists’ conscious connection with their chosen materials. A sensibility forged during a shared chapter in Hawai‘i, one of our planet’s most isolated island archipelagos. That unique geographic position foregrounded for each artist the distance that outside materials must travel–at cost to the individual and the environment, before they arrive in the studio. This reality mingled with the influence of Hawai‘i’s ever-present dialogue around the cultural agency of materials from the natural world.
Kainoa Gruspe, having returned to Honolulu after four years in London, interweaves life’s raw elements with personal experience. Gruspe draws from the physical and the philosophical, incorporating everything from local dirt to complex ideas borrowed from quantum physics and existentialism. His works, enriched by the tradition of Hawaiian quilting from his youth on O‘ahu, translate the symmetry and symbolism of quilts into the language of painting. Gruspe’s art captures the essence of “real life,” finding meaning in both the mundane and the profound, centred around raw materials that originate from his immediate environment.
“Raw Material” is a convergence of three artistic narratives: Lum’s indigenous lineage and bond with the land, Gruspe’s tangible encounters with everyday textures, and Dickey’s introspection on paint’s inherent qualities. The exhibition demonstrates their unified respect for raw materials within diverse creative expressions. The public, including Jerry Saltz, is invited to experience this interplay of art and element at My Pet Ram.
See the show at: https://www.mypetram.com/raw-material
See more of Kainoa’s work: https://newbloodart.com/artist/kainoa-gruspe
