Angela Grossmann Returns to Painting

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Angela Grossmann, “Lemon,” 2017

oil on Mylar, 68” x 44”

After years of mainly producing mixed-media collages, Angela Grossmann picked up her paint tubes and brushes recently and returned to her original medium. The startling figurative paintings that resulted are on view in Mistressworks at Vancouver’s Franc Gallery until Oct. 23.

“Going back and having this relationship with squeezing out some colour – it was so immediate, so fast and so exciting that it wasn’t about making a picture,” says Grossmann. “It was about expressing form and colour.”

Pressing paint, some of it left over from her school days, directly onto paper, vellum and Mylar, she worked so fast that a tube’s metal edge marked one of her images, Lemon. She left the marks, which look like pencil lines outlining the kneeling woman.

“That’s when I thought, I’m going to stick with this,” says Grossmann.

Her next work was Ultra Marine, quickly followed by Tangerine, the latter with a figure that appears in mid-leap, arms flung straight back and head stretched forward. The right leg is bent, the left propels the body forward.

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Angela Grossmann, "Mistressworks," 2017

installation view showing “Tangerine,” “Ultra Marine” and “Lemon” (left to right) at the Franc Gallery, Vancouver (photo courtesy of Angela Grossmann)

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Angela Grossmann, “Ultra Marine,” 2017

oil on Mylar, 73” x 44”

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Angela Grossmann, “Tangerine,” 2017

oil on Mylar, 88” x 44”

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These three paintings are displayed together, pinned against French watercolour paper, as are all pieces in the show. At times, the watercolour paper curls up at the bottom. At others, it trails onto the floor.

Bitumen Woman is made with a bitumen paint, which dries faster than other types of paint. Working with it trained Grossmann to move quickly. “Paint can stick around for a few minutes,” she says. “Not bitumen. You reach for a cup of tea, it’s dried.”

Grossmann’s physical relationship with her materials has shaped her work. “I respond totally in the moment,” she says. “It is whatever it suggests to me. I find everything in the paint. I don’t use models. I don’t use pictures.”

Thus, Grossmann has become known for gesture and movement. “Things are always moving when I’m painting, like they’re dripping down, and I have to be fast and I have to think quickly.”

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Angela Grossmann, “Breast,” 2017

oil on vellum, 42” x 30”

The title of the show is another Grossmann trademark – her feminist thrust. In her artist statement, she writes: “The use of the word master, mastery and masterpieces annoyed me … Mistressworks claims a new territory, away from the ubiquitous and outdated word master, which endorses and echoes a misogynous past.”

The energy and power of the paintings in Mistressworks is palpable, even at first glance. They become even livelier as you spend time with them.