Melbourne artist Michael Gromm, recently returned from several years living and working in Bali, is back in his country studio busy producing a fantastically vibrant new body of work. This online only exhibition - EYE WOW - presents a new suite of smaller scale works on paper. Full of glorious colour and playful gestures these exuberant images marry candy-stripes of pinks, lime, orange with swoops and whorls of fluid pigment, all set against otherwise blank grounds. With palpable optimism these energetic images are a timely antidote to a somewhat gloomy Melbourne winter. Artist statement: On March 22 I was laying poolside at a cheap hotel that was my refuge for the ten hour layover I had in Bali. I was told to get some sun after taking two taxis and traveling through two airports that morning. It was 1.44pm, my driver was returning at 8.30pm to take me back to the Ngurah Rai Airport for my flight back to Australia. I had slept very little.
Laying on my back, I removed my sunglasses and closed my eyes. The sun was glowing through my eyelids with such an intensity that it was like pressing your face against the bonnet of a freshly painted Ferrari, and the longer I kept my eyes closed the more immersive it became. I lay there, my eyes bouncing around under my eyelids trying to focus on the shapes and squiggles that were starting to appear and hover in front of my eyes. The harder I tried to see them the more they jumped around. After five or ten minutes when the sun started to take its toll, I had to turn over. My sight now shaded from the sun and yet to adjust after absorbing all that redness was now filled with a deep blue.
View Youtube insitu videos for each artwork:
Michael Gromm completed his Bachelor of Fine Art degree in 2002 at the Univeristy of Ballarat. He has been a finalist in The Geelong Contemporary Art Prize (2016), The Scope Galleries Art Prize (2012), The Metro Gallery Art Prize (2010), The Fletcher Jones Contemporary Art Prize (2008) and was announced the winner of the David Pratt Drawing Award (2001). In 2015 Gromm was selected to exhibit in FLG’s Exploration Exhibition for emerging and unsigned artists. He was awarded the FLG Emerging Artist Award in 2015 and held his first solo exhibition with FLG in 2016. His works are held in collections in Singapore, USA and across Australia.
