Philadelphia
“Weather Watching,” Alexis Granwell’s current exhibition (on view through July 31, 2024), includes several large-scale sculptures that she began in response to “Shift. Breathe. Expand: Painting in Space, ” her 2023 two-person show at SUNY, Old Westbury. SUNY’s gallery covers more than 2,000 square feet. Consequently, she created six- and seven-foot sculptures, developing new techniques and methods of production. Granwell continued making them for the Fleisher show, even though the space is much more intimate, and included some earlier, smaller works as well. The exhibition is beautifully balanced between the two scales, and the sculptures are thoughtfully placed with enough space around them to echo the solids and voids in the works themselves. The overall placement also suggests, at least for this reviewer, ancient Greek sculptures set within an environment.
Four of Granwell’s small painted drawings are also on view. They have a sense of immediacy about them, exploring form and color, and while they are not necessarily designs for sculptures, they connect to compositions that appear in the three-dimensional works.
Granwell is known for her use of paper pulp, applied to an armature made of mesh and papier-mâché in the earlier works and over welded steel in the larger, more recent sculptures. Process is important for her, and she adapts it to her intuitive way of making, laminating her handmade paper over the forms. Color is embedded in the paper, and more color is added later, but much of each sculpture remains white. It is interesting to note that Granwell studied painting in art school and came to sculpture later. Here, she employs her knowledge of both media to create dynamic objects in which color and shape are equally important. There is a poetry to the sculptures, as voids, arabesques, and asymmetries create a contrast between elegance and unease. Granwell also suggests a relationship to dance, not only within each “figure,” but also within the choreographed installation.
A tangible dialogue emerges between the bases/stands and the objects placed on or connected to them. In the smaller works, while the bases are part of the whole, the materials, which range from cement blocks to various woods, differ from those of the supported organic forms. The overall compositions are carefully organized, resulting in a complete statement. In the newer works, the paper pulp forms are married even more closely to their bases, which are also covered with pigmented paper pulp. These welded metal supports become dramatic and dynamic, mirroring the ability of the organic forms to lean and stretch. While the stands reference everyday structures, the objects connected to them indicate figures, which continues the dialogue between base and object. In both approaches, the suggestion is that of time, whether it be the layers that form the earlier works or the lively and even seemingly precarious movement of the newer pieces.
The title of the show, “Weather Watching,” indicates a sensitivity to both the personal and the external. Granwell looks inward and outward for inspiration, finding an intimate presentation that connects viewers to the artist’s touch and allows them to move through the installation as if they, too, were dancers.
