Culture

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CULTURE

[SITE SPECIFIC]

Street Art

Renowned gra ti artist Indie 184 painting mural in the forthcoming Puttshack at City Foundry STL

Written by JESSICA ROGEN

Walking into the construction zone that is the future Puttshack at City Foundry STL is about what you’d expect. The space is extremely raw with exposed beams, unpainted cement and a steady stream of neon-shirted workers wearing hardhats bringing a miniature golf course to life.

But look to the right, and you’ll find something une pected a woman with spray cans set against an open wall. This is Indie 184 — a world renowned gra ti artist who is hard at work transforming that blank wall into what will be a vibrant mural celebrating street art, St. Louis and, of course, the forthcoming Puttshack.

Indie began painting the mural earlier this month.

“It’s thrilling to say the least,” she says, “and I guess that’s what gra ti is all about, that rush. I’m up for the challenge, and I’m going to do my best.”

The project came about as a collaboration between Puttshack — a contemporary reimagining of mini golf that includes music, drinks and world cuisines — and CASS Contemporary, a Tampa, Florida, gallery that also facilitates larger-scale projects between businesses and artists. The gallery previously coordinated a mural by German artist Case Maclaim that runs alongside the main drag of City Foundry.

When the Puttshack project came up, Indie’s name surfaced almost immediately.

“We’ve worked with her in the past, and her work is just really cool,” says Tobin Green, CASS project manager. “It’s very bright and colorful, a lot of cool mixed media, and it’s approachable. People really like to engage with it.”

Indie worked with Puttshack

e very start of a mural takes shape beneath Indie 184’s spray cans. | SARAH LOVETT

to come up with the design for the mural, which incorporates its brand colors, her trademark bubble letters and subtle St. Louis imagery, such as the fleur de lis.

“I heard that the City Foundry was filled with gra ti before, and I think they wanted to return to that essence, like the gra ti culture,” Indie says.

Indie 184, a.k.a. Soraya Mar ue , first learned about street art and gra ti culture growing up in New York City. Taking the subway or riding the bus, she’d notice the gra ti, thinking of it as a kind of secret society within the city. Then, when she was 11, she read two landmark books about gra ti — Subway Art by Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant and Spraycan Art by Chalfant.

Those volumes changed the trajectory of her life. But the effects weren’t immediate.

In her early 20s, Indie was working as an administrative assistant at a nonprofit, which was working with boys, gra ti artists and other creative people. She connected with other artists and learned about the culture, starting herself to paint in the process.

As her work evolved, she transi-

Indie 184 first became interested in gra ti art growing up in New York. | SARAH LOVETT

tioned to also painting on canvas out of a desire to leave a permanent mark. Indie mi es gra ti, graphic design, photography and other media when creating her paintings. She often features strong women such as Frida Kahlo and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

“I think that happened, me doing that, subconsciously,” Indie says. “I grew up in a single-mom household. So, to me, women, I paint a lot of icons because I feel like they just resonate more with me, and I love each individual story and what it took for them to persevere. And I kind of saw that in my mom.”

But despite her evolution toward smaller-scale works, Indie says that she always finds herself “returning to the essence of graffiti.” That’s clearly evident in her dynamic and playful lettering and colors.

The large-scale projects such as this mural, though, are important to Indie. Her murals can be found across the world in locations as diverse as the South Bronx and Paris.

“It’s like the heart and soul, if you will, of my practice,” she says, “because that’s how I started. I started painting in the street. The fact that I am getting paid to do that now is amazing, and I get to collaborate with all these great clients and companies.” n

Indie 184’s mural will be open to the public at a yet-to-be-determined date. But St. Louisans can purchase a limited-edition print by the artist at Procure by The Women’s Creative (3730 Foundry Way Unit 137, shopprocure.com).

[VISUAL ART]

Wild Colors, Strange Mediums

e new Kemper Art Museum exhibition is a first for artist Katharina Grosse, who’s known for her large-scale, on-site works

Written by KASEY NOSS

Walking through Katharina Grosse’s latest exhibition is like stumbling into a contemporary wonderland. Mystifying patterns, unlikely materials and bold colors that should clash — but don’t — greet you at every turn. This is all par for the course for Grosse, an artist renowned for a vivid color palette and affinity for strange mediums.

The biggest difference between this show and her previous ones? This one’s indoors.

The exhibition, Studio Paintings, 19882022: Returns, Revisions, Inventions, opened at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum (1 Brookings Drive, 314-9354523) late last month. It features 37 largescale canvases divided into two thematic sections: Returns, Revisions, Inventions and Fissures and Ruptures.

Aside from the two galleries, Grosse’s work at the Kemper also includes a series of three digital prints on fabric, roughly 22 1/2 feet tall, hanging in the museum’s atrium. The unveiling of Studio Paintings is accompanied by a book of the same name featuring 160 full-color plates and 38 supplemental images documenting her studio practice over the last three decades.

Grosse flew in for the exhibition’s opening on September 23. Wearing a bright-orange dress with a white, geometric pattern, Grosse appeared as vibrant and spirited as the paintings that surrounded her.

“You’re very active in the space,” she said as she introduced the exhibition. “Your position [within the exhibition] defines what you can get and what you can understand of the work. You constantly move, you see things out of the corner of your eye. … I think it is odd to have a very clear relationship to the work.”

The indoor studio exhibition is the first of its kind for Grosse, who is most known for her large-scale, on-site works painted directly onto their surrounding environments.

“Katharina Grosse is one of the most stimulating, creative and thoughtful painters working today,” Sabine Eckmann, the William T. Kemper director and chief curator at the Kemper, said in a statement. “Yet, to date, her works on canvas have been relatively understudied. We are extremely honored to shine a light on this foundational aspect of her oeuvre.”

All of the works in the exhibition are untitled. Instead, each painting is labeled with the year Grosse painted it, amplifying the exhibition’s goal of exploring changes and continuities in Grosse’s work over the years.

The exhibition’s first section, Returns, Revisions, and Inventions, features many of her earlier works. It also highlights the fluid and spontaneous nature of Grosse’s creative process. She doesn’t begin her works with a specific endgame in mind. Rather than plan out her paintings from the start, she lets the creative process guide her.

“That is very much how I worked and still work,” Grosse says. “I define the starting point, but then it is very possible that toward the end of the work, I’m very far away from where it started. I find that it’s important to actually sift through the possibilities.”

The evidence of Grosse’s process shines through in the exhibition. Viewers can trace each brushstroke or color from the painting’s genesis, even if the completed work sees them covered or hidden. In Untitled, 2005, for example, a blue, magenta and yellow geometric pattern is clearly visible beneath lime-green streaks that define the foreground.

The second section, Fissures and Ruptures, marks a slight departure from her earlier methods. Through the use of unusual methods and mediums, Grosse demonstrates her desire to blur the lines between the canvas and its surroundings. She particularly favors using a spray gun, which allows her to expand her range of motion and, consequently, the kinds of works she is able to create.

Grosse also employs soil, shredded canvases and even tree branches to blur the line between the traditional canvas and the outside world. For one work, Untitled, 2006, Grosse stomped all over a circular canvas wearing specially made, rubberplated boots. Muted brown footprints litter the splashes of red, orange and green that form the background, drawing attention to the process that brought the work into being rather than the finished product itself.

The exhibition allows viewers to see how Grosse’s work has evolved over the years, but it also highlights captivating consistencies. Color is decidedly one of them.

“I had a moment, definitely, when I left art school, and it was really understanding and agreeing with myself that color is the main medium,” Grosse says. “It’s like when you switch on the music of a song that you totally love, and the first two bars you hear you go, ‘Ah, alright.’ … That’s why I live, and that’s what color does for me, really.”

Though Grosse generally skips the canvas for her site-related works and paints directly on the surrounding environment, even her studio work demonstrates her proclivity for larger-than-life art.

“I’ve always liked large paintings, even as a little kid,” Grosse says. “I have a real problem staying where I am. I like to move, to vibrate, and then the vibration gets larger, and larger, and larger.”

Grosse’s massive canvases have the effect of making viewers feel almost childishly small, yet drawn into something larger than themselves. Grosse is interested in the way paintings allow us to tap into and process our emotions. The canvas, though in some ways confining, also proves a particularly powerful medium for achieving this effect.

“You can be actually more aggressive because a lot of action goes into a small space, whereas outdoors, the action I have goes into a large space, so it’s actually slow motion,” Grosse says. n

From le : Katharina Grosse’s Untitled, 2016; Untitled, 2015; Untitled, 2013. All are acrylic on canvas. | VIRGINIA HAROLD

Process shines in the exhibition, as in Untitled, 2004 (second from the right). | VIRGINIA HAROLD

Katharina Grosse’s exhibition will be on display until late January. | LARISSA HOFMANN

The Kemper Art Museum is open to visitors each week from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Monday as well as Wednesday to Sunday. You can check out Studio Paintings, 19882022: Returns, Revisions, Inventions now through Monday, January 23, 2023.