‘Open Call’ @ Grove Collective
Having received hundreds of applications and thunderous support from communities at home and abroad, Grove Collective’s Open Call Summer exhibition brings together a group of artists varied in their themes, practices, and locations in order to highlight the wide range in both the gallery’s curatorial interests and in the kinds of art being produced across the world by ambitious practitioners. In turn, the gallery hopes to use the exhibition as a means of creating longstanding relationships with the participating artists, having been introduced to practices previously unknown.
A highlight of the exhibition is Georgina Hustler’s collages of unposed, authentic figures, drawn from photographs of raves, clubs and youth culture. Hustler’s painting style is spontaneous and raw, painting honest scenes that celebrate the imperfect quirks of youth. The blurred, multiple-point perspectives and ambiguous settings allow the viewer to interpret the scene how they wish. In Everybody You’ve Ever Met (2021), Hustler applauds human connection and togetherness, something that has been scarce in the past year. In this sense, there is palpable nostalgia in Hustler’s paintings and a sense of longing.
Georgina Hustler, Everybody You’ve Ever Met, 2021. Source: Grove Collective.
From crowded clubs to more solitude moments: Henry Glover, another artist selected for Grove Collective’s Summer Exhibition, presents two paintings of closely cropped bodies. Despite not being able to locate where the people are due to the closeness of the images, one suspects they are laying down, in the privacy of a bedroom. Glover is concerned with personal feelings of introspection, something everyone is well acquainted with during the pandemic, which has catalysed the effects of intense rumination and loneliness.
Henry Glover, Adorn, 2021. Source: Grove Collective.
Clara-Lane Lens, a Belgian artist working between Brussels and Berlin, similarly paints lone figures. Her selected artwork for this exhibition, I Don’t Think This, Too, Shall Pass (2020), depicts a woman bent over, with a surrealist, sky blue, unidentifiable animal at her feet. At almost one and a half metres in length, the woman is life-size, confronting the viewer with her searching gaze, drawing one in to the painting.
Clara-Lane Lens, I Don’t This, This Too, Shall Pass, 2020. Source: Grove Collective.
Grove Collective’s Open Call not only focuses on figurative painting, but also ceramics and more abstract works, presenting a varied, diverse group of artworks and artists. Henrietta MacPhee, a ceramicist whose practice is centered on clay, delights in the exotic and playful, bringing a bright jollity to the exhibition through her practice. MacPhee wants her art to be playful, representing an innocent relationship with the material form. Such desires are made clear in her two pieces selected for the open call: Banana Fan (2019) and Adoration (2019).
Henrietta MacPhee, Adoration, 2019. Source: Grove Collective.
Lastly, Open Call presents two talented abstract artists: Coco Bluebell Morris and Hannah Ni Mhaonaigh. Morris ‘s practice involves a layered approach to making: building up colour and tone to “break down” and remake what she initially observed. Morris places emphasis on the relationships between colour and form, the material properties of paint and the act of painting itself. Ultimately, her work explores the various ways in which colours interact to create oscillating visual sensations. Mhaonaigh’s process involves a comparable layering and removal of paint to create interesting, textured layers of colour. Her repetitive process of over-painting and pairing back leads to an intangible honesty and energy in the final painting.
Coco Bluebell Morris, In the Window, 2021. Source: Grove Collective.
Hannah Ni Mhaonaigh, Happy Days, 2021. Source: Grove Collective.
Grove Collective’s Open Call exhibition reaffirms the gallery’s dedication to championing talented rising artists across a variety of mediums and practices. As Grove Collective’s founders Jacob and Morgane state, it is impossible to know all of the exciting and ambitious work being made today, even locally in London. Yet, this Open Call offers a glimpse.
All images courtesy of Grove Collective.
Reviews Editor, MADE IN BED