A realist painter whose large-scale works blur fact and fiction, Alina Grasmann’s narratives are rooted in place, using real locations as a departure point for finding an emotional truth about a place like a novelist or filmmaker. “I always work in series and each of my series refers to a real, existing place,” Grasmann says. “Nevertheless, I never simply depict reality. I think what I’m really trying to do is capture my own feelings I have at a certain place by exaggerating reality, changing, for example, the light or the architecture by adding or taking away objects.”
Grasmann works in series, generally producing 10 to 15 paintings on a specific location. The cover image, The Continuity of Parks, is from her Florida Raume series, a depiction of the Sunshine State that seems one step short of the surreal, like the opening of a David Lynch movie before reality heads sideways.
“My process is quite time-consuming,” Grasmann says. “Often, I learn about a place by chance in literature or film. This linkage between place and source material naturally makes me create my own picture of the site before I even go there. When I can’t get the place out of my head, I travel there. On location, I realize very quickly whether I want to get involved further and possibly dedicate a new series to it. It’s a very intuitive decision. I then take my time and try to be alone with the place, taking photos and comparing my preconceived image of the place with that of the in-person experience.”
Back home, Grasmann makes a small selection of images and proceeds using the photos like digital sketches. She works with them until she likes the composition and the content. “As I’m working on the photographs, I also work on the conceptual ideas I want to approach and the questions and feelings that I have about the particular place,” she adds. Painting a complete series of 10 to 15 large-scale works usually takes one to two years.
Though she says she has no intention to tell stories in her paintings, she acknowledges their importance in how the paintings develop and the reception of her works. Rather than illustrating existing myths about a place, she aims to create space for associations so new stories emerge. “I want my paintings to be a kind of blank space in which anyone could become the protagonist,” Grasmann says. “My hope is that the viewer finds their own access points into my work and can engage in a conversation with it. I’m happy if my work triggers something in the person who is looking at it. They could even just have a vague feeling that arises. A feeling can be a story in itself.”
Though she lives and works in Germany, Grasmann has a deep love and appreciation for the US, and the Hudson Valley in particular, which she visits about once a year. Her series West of Eden is a reimaging of various spaces in Dia:Beacon, placing peacocks next to Richard Serra’s Torqued Ellipses and a lily pond in in the round concavity of Michael Heizer’s North, East, South, West.
She comes here at least once a year for inspiration. “I’ve always been fascinated by the American landscape, culture, and architecture, and except for my current series, all my works so far reference specific places in the United States,” says Grasmann. “My works are mostly set here, where new mythology seems to be created constantly.”
For the last three months, Grasmann has been in residence at Fridman Gallery in Beacon. The paintings that she completed in that time will be exhibited in the show “The Grand Buffet,” from June 11 through July 30 at Fridman Gallery.
