Eyes Adjusting Slowly is the third solo exhibition from artist and CalArts alum Nicolas Grenier (Art MFA 10) at Luis De Jesus Los Angeles. It opens on Saturday, Nov. 13, and remains on view through Dec. 22.
Grenier’s a new series of paintings is presented in a labyrinthian site-specific installation that unfolds in a series of pathways and color-filled rooms. The paintings aren’t meant to be viewed in one glance; the fragmentation of the gallery space leads the viewer to contemplate individual works.
Thematically, Grenier’s work suggests ways to navigate the difficult questions of today, including climate change, socio-economic and racial inequity, political polarization, and the growing inability to governourselves in an era of global challenges.
From Luis De Jesus’ press release:
From one work to the next, the paintings propose different means for addressing these issues, ranging from informal manifesto to experimental economics to ideological inquiries, placing the viewer in a discursive visual space that hovers between the didactic and the lyrical. The paintings combine hard edge graphics with vaporous gradients, diagrammatic schema and symbols, landscapes, and color fields. They convey speculative visions for the future while also referencing art history.
Grenier creates an unlikely balance between content and form by combining the old-fashioned qualities of oil painting — slowness, sensuality, richness — with a pictorial language inspired by design, data visualization, architecture, and other organizational disciplines that form the infrastructure of the large scale information systems governing our neoliberal society.
Grenier has presented solo exhibitions at The Luminary, St. Louis, Mo., (2016); and Centre CLARK, Montreal (2017), and has participated in group exhibitions at the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art (2021); The Musée Nationale des Beaux-Arts du Québec (2018- 2020); The Power Plant, Toronto (2018); the Brugges Triennale of Art and Architecture (Belgium, 2015); and the Montreal Biennale (2014).
