Sky Line

Peter Gronquist
Opens Aug 24

Ever attuned to events inside in the studio but also to elements outside of it, Peter Gronquist (b. 1979, Portland, OR) mobilizes a West Coast sensibility that is at once highly painterly and decidedly environmental. A 21st century pleinairist, the American artist—who began his career as a figurative painter and has become a multimedia purveyor of wall works, sculptures and expansive installations—has made landscape, and especially the light and air of the Pacific Northwest, a recurring subject that is explored through various media. For SKY LINE (2023), the artist has sought, in his words, to “take the idea of a billboard, a capitalist mode of selling, and reclaim it.” In place of an advertisement shilling for this or that product, Gronquist has selected to present “a single neon line, a nod to the original creative mark,” in order to “dash the sky,” while offering evocative as well as ingenious skywriting “in place of commerce.”

Whether through painting, sculpture, photography, installation, video or interventions in nature, Gronquist’s signature is a search for phenomena that often remain stubbornly unseen. In the artist’s own words, his project has become a poetic history of the invisible: “a monument to the invisible element, to forces that shape the earth in the most undeniable way.”

EASTBANK COMMERCE CENTER
1001 SE Water Ave, Portland OR 97214