Paul Grodhues
Painting’s Title: A Quarter In The Slot
Medium used: Acrylic on canvas
Studio-based: Barcelona
Can you tell us about the process of making your work?
My process always starts very abstract. I usually draw graphic shapes, fill them in with colour and overlay these with further gestures. In a next step I impulsively destroy the majority of this geometrical formation with rough brush strokes, what remains are colored fragments with a monochrome background. Only then I start looking for figures or objects that I work out in more detail. What turned out well survives, the rest is painted over again and the process is repeated until I have found a valuable approach.
These leftover fragments helped me to dress figures, even if it was only with chequered socks, big shoes or hats. When I moved to Barcelona I made a university exchange in textile design so I started sewing. I don’t design clothes but I tried to find a new way of expressing myself with other mediums. Catalunya has a history of textile industry, so I have easy access to the materials. I was really attracted by it and have seen an opportunity to escape from my habits in painting. In the past it was more static, geometric and graphic but I wanted it to be more organic. In textile I can fill the characters with cotton wool to create volume, use leatherette and take advantage of how lights and shadows get generated by itself. The shiny surface of the materials is also something you can’t get to through painting. I really enjoy the discovery of that medium.
How would you define your work in a few words (ideally in 3 words)?
Mystic, humorous and playful.
Could you share with us some insights on this ‘A Quarter in the Slot’, (2023) painting? Is there any particular story behind this new work?
In 2021 I made a paperwork which had the same title. It was a figure wearing a hat and standing next to a mill. The title implies the idea of inserting a coin and it starts to move. The canvas you mention is a very contrast to the works I usually do as it’s very much reduced to only one character. I guess it’s because I liked how the face turned out and I wanted it to have attention. It’s an acrobat with a fair attraction, typical for a body of works I did a while ago.
Observing your works, it seems they look cheeky and playful; how important humour is in your colourful imagery?
Haha, I like cheeky. Humor is indeed important to me. The work is more accessible to the observer through a presentation of lightness. Perhaps more in a sense of titling the works, you open up a new meta level and describe something you might not see at first. I started to investigate in it a few years ago, after my teacher in art school recommended me to not use a single word as a title but to play with it in a similar way as I paint, more fragmentary. She asked me if I wouldn’t read a lot and collect phrases from books. As examples she mentioned works by Magritte as „Ceci n’est pas une pipe.“ It was not easy in the beginning but meanwhile I have a list of so many titles, I’m not even able to paint that much. But it really helped me in my painting process. If I get stuck, I go through the list and look for ideas to push the work in a certain direction. It’s very fun!
Looking at your polychromatic paintings, it seems that you are applying a wide range of colours on your canvases. Which are the (roughly) right conditions that lead you to choose the right colour combinations on each painting?
It’s very intuitive. I just start with one random color and add more step by step, which i think complement each other well. The process of layering creates meticulous textures of colors, often figurative elements appear without intentionally shaping them. Since the beginning I used unsaturated tones, like pastel colors. It was easier for me to combine a wide range of them because they are not mutually exclusive. That bright purple and yellow was probably very significant for me, then more pink and magenta. I like those colors because they are less conventional or different as you would observe something in real life. You look at them and they transport you into a more fictional world.
Based on recent works of yours such as the ‘Those Who Wanted to Sleep’, ‘The Whole Town Was Awake’ or ‘Der Elefant verschwindet, it seems that there is a consistent fascination on jugglers and a sort of a playful circus imagery that dominates your visual compositions; do this sort of motif has a deeper meaning or interest to you as an artist?
I guess it was more the process by itself that lead me there. In my case I have never liked it to paint an entire figure, I always destroyed them and pushed it into abstraction, so I ended up having these fragmentary elements. A leg of one figure turns out to be a second left leg of the other one (e.g. „He thought it was more amusing than she did“). Or I stretched a figure that it looked like as it was a stilt walker. The topic of the circus just allowed me to paint these rare things, more irregular, curious, peculiar. But there are more sources of inspiration. First I made works about carnival and fairs, such as „When the Acrobats returned with their vagabond Carnival“ or „Gaudy Parasols Protecting The Confectionery“. The motifs I drew inspiration from my travels in South America where I have spent almost one year. I remember in Peru or Colombia i accidentally ran into many street festivals where people sell churros and sweets. A lot of colorful marquees and stuff like that. Also there is this book I always mention, One hundred Years of Solitude by colombian writer Garcia Marquez.
The first 50-100 pages contain a lot of information about acrobats and circus events by a group of jugglers who try to sell their new inventions. It’s probably one of the most famous works of magic realism. It’s captivating and fascinating, many of the work-titles I found between that blurred line of fiction and reality. The literary influences where probably the most inspiring. Mystic and enigmatic, ironic and exaggerated.
Do specific artworks have been created by random experiments in your studio or do you usually come up with a particular concept or narrative in the very beginning of your artistic process?
I guess it’s all about experimenting and to continue exploring. I want to be surprised by what comes out of the painting, nothing that I could have planed before. When I start with a certain idea, it never makes it until the end because along the journey of the process I discover new stuff that is worth to integrate, whether it fits the idea or not. That’s why I rarely start with a certain concept or drawing that I want to translate into a painting, in my case it just doesn’t work or at least i’m not satisfied by it. Maybe in a later stage of the process I can take the work somewhere I want it to be or add something I find in my sketchbook. In case I start with a figurative concept, it surely goes through many stages of abstraction. But from every work you also learn something for the next one, you constantly search for solutions of problems you created by yourself. I also would consider certain paintings I did as milestones where I understood how I can make it work. The narrative usually only emerges towards the end.
Can you mention any artists you, lately or generally, take inspiration from?
The abstract expressionists in America for example, like Cy Twombly. Or German expressionist E.L. Kirchner also was very important for me, the way he drew or painted his figures or faces. Bodies reduced to simple shapes, same as Matisse. Tal R as the master he is in every matter. Danny Fox also had a lasting effect on me. In an interview he said, „you have to make sacrifices to make an image work“. I always fill the painting with many elements and later paint over many of them to find the right composition, even if it’s hard to let them go because I like them on their own but not how they fit into the entire composition. That’s why I always remember that sentence. But my favorite of all is Ida Ekblad, I admire her imagination and fantasy and the way she is expressing it.
Which are your plans for the near future?
I came to Barcelona two years ago for a university exchange in fine arts. I never knew for how long I could stay because of my school in Germany, but step by step I managed to graduate from here. I moved into a new place recently somewhere in the outskirts where I have a lot of space to paint, so there is no reason to leave. It’s more like a new chapter just started. Also I’m preparing my degree show that takes place in my hometown in July. I’m just motivated to work hard and try to make it possible having a future of artistic practice.
All images courtesy of the artist