Artist Nick Grindrod shares his thoughts and inspirations behind Variations on a Theme with Art Works' Artist Liaison, Marie Deneux.

Variations on a Theme is Nick Grindrod's Asian debut exhibition. Part of Singapore Art Week, the exhibition runs from 16th January to 16th February 2025 at Art Works Gallery, One Holland Village, Singapore. View the exhibition page here.

Marie Deneux: For collectors who may not know you, tell us about yourself and how you came to art. Was being an artist something you always wanted?

Nick Grindrod: I grew up in Sheffield, an industrial city that was going through tremendous change in the ‘80s and ‘90s. There was a vibrant and creative scene emerging from the ashes of the steel industry. Although this was mainly in the music that was being produced at the time by artists such as The Human League, Cabernet Voltaire & ABC etc., it provided a new voice and dialogue that added to the city’s heritage. This gave a subconscious fuel to the work that I am known for now. It is a far cry from my figurative teachings from art college. Saying that, I do feel that the colour theory and composition does lend itself to the structure of the paintings I make today.

I was never really interested in school. The facts in life always left me asking more questions! Art was, and still is, the only thing that gives my life purpose (apart from my family!). It is hard to pinpoint what an artist is, but I think purpose is definitely a major element—something that became apparent to me after a long time doing mundane jobs that gave me no fulfilment. I came back to my practice in 2012 and I have been painting every day ever since.

MD: What was the inspiration behind the title Variations on a Theme? Can you describe your creative process when developing new pieces for this exhibition?

NG: We have to go back in time to the 2020 lockdown, when we were all stuck at home. I wanted to keep working, so I made myself a home studio. That was an interesting period of time because no one could do anything. We were confined, so the work was confined as well. I spent a lot of time making very small paintings, like the twelve that are in the show as part of my practice.

As things started to expand, it awoke a want and need to explore the possibilities and push the design further in terms of scale. As an abstract visual artist, especially one that uses geometric shapes, you tend to find that certain things click together harmoniously—whether it’s the colours, the composition, or both, but seeing how compositions and colours react and adapt to various scales is particularly interesting to me.

I have always been a fan of the series of paintings that a lot of painters did in the past, where they would sit en plein air and, like Monet’s Haystacks, paint a hay bale in different lights from different angles for the same subject matter, and pushing it to the nth degree, where it becomes something else, something more. And I think the scale of the paintings for Art Works has enabled that for me. There is always going to be colour, there is always going to be form, they are the two most important things to my practice. But scale is where I am trying to push my boundaries.

Nick working on The Weight of the World with a sponge. The 200cm x 300cm artwork is the artist's largest work to date.

MD: I am glad you are mentioning scale; it allows me to introduce you to a work we are thrilled to be showing, The Weight of the World, your largest painting to date at two by three meters. How was this process for you, creating at such a large scale?

NG: Like I mentioned, one of the things that working with Art Works has enabled me to explore is scale. A lot of my earlier works have been restricted to smaller paintings, due to studio size and wall space. This will be my largest work to date—what an exciting challenge! It is important to get everything into this piece—composition, colour and form. I am not going to give too much away... I hope it doesn’t disappoint!

MD: How do you approach creating variations within your work? Are there specific motifs or themes that you explore or are drawn to repeatedly?

NG: Variations in the paintings come from play—disregarding the need for validation and pushing forwards. There is always a chance that it won’t hit the mark, but there is no real progress without pushing the envelope. I feel that I would always regret not trying, and just ‘making do.’ It has always been my intention to find a way to bring hard-edge painting and a more painterly style together, and give a kind of harmonious nostalgia. I want people to feel like they know my work, but they are not quite sure why.

MD: Apart from hard-edge painting, are there other artists, movements, or cultural influences that have inspired or continue to inspire you?

NG: That’s a big question! How long have you got? Growing up, I was obsessed with the figurative giants: Freud, Bacon, Saville, Auerbach. They all have their own abstract elements. When I started to paint again, the influences changed. The abstract expressionists and painters like Josef Albers, Lee Krasner, and John Hoyland all started to tick boxes in where I saw my practice going.

In fact, when Damien Hirst first opened the Newport Gallery in London, one of the first exhibitions was his collection of John Hoyland’s Power Stations paintings. If you have spent time in a room with those paintings and the way that the paint is applied, the way that the linseed oil bleeds through the raw canvas, you will see he left a lot of mistakes, or perceived mistakes, on those works, and they were so incredibly powerful. I got a real sense of freedom, of anything being possible if you let yourself go. He may be overlooked sometimes, but I think he is still one of the absolute greatest (and he was from Sheffield too!).

A couple of years ago, I was invited to take part in a group show with the London Group at the Cello Factory. Members include some great artists, including Bridget Riley. It was kind of a fanboy moment because she is up there with John Hoyland and Josef Albers! Bridget Riley is a great influence on my work, and in some of the new pieces painted for the show, like Karma Suits You, or The Weight of the World, I think you can see the Bridget Riley influence, which comes from being in this show together.

MD: Both these shows were in London, but you live and work in Sheffield. How does your immediate environment influence your practice? And how does the London scene, one of the most dynamic in the world today, influence you?

NG: Sheffield’s rich industrial heritage does influence my work, consciously or unconsciously. There is a weathering effect of time on the architecture and buildings in Sheffield that creates a tactile beauty of its own. I like to layer and remove paint in my works, and use sponges, scalpels, and sandpaper to create a patina and nostalgic quality that mirrors this.

We are also very close to nature, so all these elements—the human, the architectural, and the natural elements—come together and give different qualities to the work.

But as creative a city as Sheffield can be, it is somewhat parochial. Whereas London has that vibrancy, that global element, that commitment to moving things forward. The art scene in Sheffield is very colourful, but it is quite insular. After visiting shows in London, I always come back full of energy and full of new ideas!

Sing Amore is the artist's nod to Singapore.

MD: This is your first solo presentation in Asia; are you excited to show here? You will be coming to Singapore too. What are you most looking forward to here?

NG: Yes, this will be my first solo exhibition in Asia, and first solo show with Art Works—so I am very excited! It is an opportunity that I am honoured to have, and I have enjoyed making a whole new body of work for. The last time I was in Singapore was back-packing in 2001, so I am really looking forward to visiting this vibrant country again.

I wanted to create something special for Singapore, so I challenged myself to paint a monochromatic work, using only the colours of the Singaporean flag—white, red (and black), Sing Amore. My work is usually very colourful, so having a limited palette should paradoxically make the work stand out even more within the exhibition. I have found that putting on some restraints actually gives you more creative freedom. It is really exciting.

MD: Is there any other piece featured in the exhibition that is special to you?

NG: There is a painting called A Pex. This painting may have a sense of harmony, but the journey was anything but! The pieces that put up the biggest fights are always the ones that make you feel like you have accomplished something (when they go well, that is!).

A Pex started out as a dot painting that I’d had an idea for—trying to reverse the colours from top to bottom. After a couple of days, it was clear it wasn’t going to work. After a few attempts to push the work forward, the fight wasn’t going my way. I had to leave it alone for a while, and thankfully that gave a new perspective, which brought the painting to fruition.

I went back to a work painted a few years ago, which was about the relationship that I had with my gran. She used to travel a lot, and she sent me cards and postcards from wherever she was. The original painting was called Memories on Postcards, and it featured all multiple folded cards, or V shapes.

It transformed into another work, In the Fold, which was exhibited in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 2023, and these multiple V shapes became a pattern I explored for a while. In A Pex, the card, or inverted V, has been isolated and made into a singular shape on a much bigger scale, which gives a widely different impression. Definitely one of my favourites in the show.

MD: It is a great one! And made even more special because we are also showing a preparatory sketch of it, giving us a hint about your process. Could you tell us more about the three sketches which are part of the exhibition, and which role they play in your work?

NG: These pre-sketches are a fairly rare thing. They are something that I only do when I need to see a more polished rendering before painting. Even then they don’t always scale up! My process is deeply rooted in play and research into colour and form. I don’t get too deep into why I make the work. It is mine—if you enjoy it, that’s great! I feel it would be disingenuous of me to create a narrative or give my work any other reason to exist.

MD: When the works do scale up, how do you achieve the precision you are known for? In your layering process, how do you decide which elements to emphasise, obscure, or remove?

NG: Although the forms are precise, when you look closer you start to see elements to the work that are anything but! I forgive myself mistakes—embrace them, leave them to add their own subtleties and qualities to the finished painting. There is a lot of adding and removing in my practice, but every time something is stripped away, it leaves marks, which add up when you start to build the painting up. Making those decisions in real time is really important to feel that you are creating something. If it is too formulated, you know where it is going; there is no journey, no “fight” between you and the painting. Leaving those elements on, leaving the distressed surfaces, you can see the journey that the painting has been on.

MD: Embracing mistakes and learning to let go is something that most artists go through, but it is never an easy process.

NG: Yes, every artist goes through that. When you create, you always find something, a painting or a quality, that you really resonate with, and that becomes a part of you. It was the lockdown that taught me to let go: every day I was making smaller pieces that take about a day and a half to paint. The rhythm is more intense, but it was a great way to start to feel less like the painting was a part of me and to learn to let go.

I am very much aware in conversations with other artists that they can get bent out of shape by imperfection or lines not quite straight. For me, that lends something to my work, and I am happy for people to see it rather than hide it or rework it.

END

---- 

Variations on a Theme is Nick Grindrod's Asian debut exhibition. Part of Singapore Art Week, the exhibition runs from 16th January to 16th February 2025 at Art Works Gallery, One Holland Village, Singapore. View the exhibition page here.