ANDREW GRASSIE SCULPTURES

SS/JAR SET 6/4

NEW YORK CITY — The Paul Morris Gallery will open “Andrew Grassie Sculptures” on June 22 with a reception from 6 to 8 pm at 465 West 23rd Street. Regular gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 11 am to 6 pm, and the exhibit runs through August 20. New egg tempera paintings by Grassie will be in this first solo show with the gallery.

Since graduating from St Martin’s School of Arts and the Royal College of Art in London, Andrew Grassie has been making both oils and small egg tempera paintings of hotel rooms, holiday homes and astronauts. These early works were rendered with a dry flatness that leaves the subject with an almost forensic aesthetic. The interior feels like crime scenes and the astronauts appear as criminals in mug shots.

In his latest body of work, examples of American sculpture are the subject matter for Grassie’s paintings. As in his previous series Grassie seeks out and underscores the banality of the subject. Although many of the sculptures can easily be identified, some of the pieces were made by artists in the 70s whose careers faded into history leaving them virtually unknown. Even some of the better-known works hit a mediocre note, however, as Grassie lifts the images from art historical textbooks, which do not necessarily employ the best reproductions.

A welded David Smith work is pushed up against a brick wall outside of possibly some municipal building leaving the viewer with an aesthetic experience close to observing a bike rack or bus stop bench. With his deadpan delivery lost in the details and minutia of the renderings Grassie drains much of the high art culture from the sculptures.

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