Manor Grunewald is an autodidactic artist. His path towards paper and canvas is defined by painting and drawing, by the action itself rather than by the technical approach, fed and infected by his earlier creative work as a graffiti artist. He is now more than ever looking for new possibilities to challenge and expand the classical constraints of the canvas. He wants to break with the rules and structures inherent in his medium. Looking at his work one cannot help but notice that the structural elements are hidden behind different layers of paint. Layers that seem to clash with one another rather than combine. But looks can deceive. Grunewald’s work is first and foremost a search for structure, balance and harmony. The tools he uses to make this search successful – choice of paint, images, mazes, patterns and colours – lead to a chaotic, nonchalant ‘counterweight’, resulting in strong, formal images that seem accessible at first glance.
Manor Grunewald finds inspiration for his work in existing imagery like newspaper articles, comic books or illustrated encyclopaedia. His starting point is a specific observation of people and cultures and the general experience and depiction of the reality that surrounds us. Comic books from the 70ies, advertisements from the 50ies with women wearing their dresses just below the knee, playing their typical roles as busy management assistant or housewife with their men and children enjoying that homemade chocolate pie. Stern-looking men in suits, nostalgic astronauts that feed our imagination… By using existing images that have become icons over time and by not linking these images with reality his paintings often lead to a sense of nostalgia. This feeling is strengthened by a very open method of association. The story or the meaning behind the icons used is not important, it is all about the semiotics of the image, the atmosphere surrounding them, and the resulting graphical associations.
The artist subjects his images to an intuitive process of construction and demolition, in which the different layers of paint and images can strengthen or alternatively destroy one another. We can see patterns, textures, mazes and colours drawing attention. They conceal and soil the underlying icon until all that remains is just a patch of hair or a faceless head. The process of painting seems to be quite destructive, but it always evolves into a composition that is ‘right’. Manor Grunewald uses a trial and error method to create strong, formal images which the spectator can only classify as elementary. He unconsciously seeks structure in his work, something to hold onto, a frame that can be used to balance the chaos. The mazes and patterns are testament to this, just like the use of projections to bring his images to the canvas.
The artist strives for harmony within his image, a fact that becomes even more evident in his recent work. Manor Grunewald continues to search for more possibilities to break the classical boundaries of the canvas. In his compositions it is not only about the layers of paint, it is also about the layers that are being formed by bringing different canvases together. Canvases of different formats lean against the wall, overlapping one another in such a way that every single canvas remains adequately visible, all according to the composition the artist had in mind.
He combines his works to reach a new cohesive result. Some canvases are interchangeable, they can be moved to the front or disappear in the back. In some cases this process is even more extreme, fragmenting one image and spreading it over different canvases, eventually bringing the original composition together again in one complete image. This approach does have its effect on the individual compositions. They no longer stand on their own but rather serve the greater good. They are characters in a story that has to have a powerful image first and foremost.
The way in which Manor Grunewald places these spatial but still two-dimensional images (leaning against bricks) in the room seems nonchalant at first. They seem to be taken from his workshop and placed at random in the exhibition room. But his methods cannot be described as nonchalant or random. His approach and results in the room can be compared with an interior designer giving every piece of furniture its place within a whole room and making that room ‘fit’ because of correct placement.
Striving for intense visual interiors is nothing new. The 18th century Rococo interiors are a prime example with their curling splendour in gold and pastel, their sunny-coloured chairs, murals and paintings bathing in sunlight… Every single element in the interior stood on its own: a chair, a chaise longue, a cabinet or wall paper. This is evident in the minute development of every piece of furniture. But at the same time every element served a higher purpose: a perfect bigger picture. Everything within this bigger picture had its place because of that perfect picture. On the other hand it is clear that the longing for lightness and unconcern was evident in every aspect of the Rococo interior as an intuitive accumulation of images representing the vision of the owner. The interior acted as a mirror for the era, for the needs and complexities of the 18th century society. The heavy 17th century Baroque interiors in which gargantuan proportions and display of wealth were used first and foremost to impress the visitor made way for more intimate spaces in which people felt more at home.
The comparison between a Rococo interior and the method Grunewald uses can be made because of this shared striving for harmony within a specific structure by using seemingly intuitive and chaotic images. But there is more to it than that. The artist also succeeds using his work to emotionally respond to our current society and to show just how fragmented the spirit of our era really is. We are constantly being subjected to a fast frenetic rhythm, resulting in a shattered attention span – a little bit of attention for everyone and everything. We are being bombarded with images, sounds and different impulses, all begging for our attention. The work of the artist succeeds in providing an answer to this problem, mostly by strongly believing in the power of images. He chooses the images for us and returns them to us in fragments, backed up by the necessary harmony and a formal framework, but not totally without concern.