Carlos Grasso

Artist Statement

My most recent work is an exploration not only of the relationship of different materials between each other (natural, fabricated or found objects) but also between form, shape and texture and how all these elements, by nature different, coexist in an homogeneous whole. Each piece tells a different story related to my own life experiences.

“9” is a series of brief "visual statements” (visual haikus, short poems-stories) grouped together through a common narrative. “Canvas Deconstruction” is an exploration of the individual and social fragmentation of the present times. From a unified whole (single piece of canvas), multiplicity of forms spring into existence.

As artists, one of our roles is to be the eyes and voice of the underlying processes that govern the individual artist, society and nature as a whole. A single piece of artwork is a blueprint of a larger web of interconnections.

.About Carlos

Born in Buenos Aires (Argentina). Lives and works in Ojai, California. Studied Music, Graphic Arts and Painting in Buenos Aires, Paris and Los Angeles. Visiting his studio one experiences the broad range of his work: abstract, representational, minimalist, expressionist, monochromatic, colorful... defining him as a visionary and visually insatiable experimental artist. He can be a staunch realistic or an explosive expressionist, a minimalist or a texture explorer. He is not confined to any medium, adapting his methods to his concepts, shifting easily between paint, unconventional materials, mixed media and conceptual work.

Eduardo N. Gomez, Art Critic Nice-France, wrote about Grasso's work: ""It’s an adventure to be face to face with a work by Carlos Grasso. It’s never a simple matter and one can’t be certain of the outcome. You may emerge unscathed but definitely not unchanged.”

“Nine Statements,” an effective and dangerous work in which a single line draws out unknown feelings like a looking glass in which we read our own reflection. A battlefield on which an ordinary scissor can become a sacred object and res, black and white are far more than neutral colors. These works use us as sounding boards while our eyes wide shut transcend normal vision; this is true art.

Confrontation becomes a magic act, a surprise, because we expect a work to speak of its creator. Here we are facing a work that instead speaks of us, that fulfills the true function of art, an open and generous act that guides us inward toward ourselves. 

In recent works and particularly in “Analog Canvas Deconstruction,” this creeps up on us like caramel coated poison, sweetly penetrating us but when suddenly we sense the danger within, it’s already too late.

Captivated from the start, in minutes we are trapped and then irreversibly transformed. A subtly elegant style and simple approach seize us, hypnotize us and reveal unknown sensations.

André Malraux’s thought, “Art is the shortest path from one human being to another,” has never been more appropriate."

www.carlosgrasso.com