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With an endless supply of knowledge and information readily available at our fingertips, it’s nice to have a place to go to explore the unknown; where accidents and the mundane are celebrated, contradiction becomes a formula and running around in a haphazard, random manner is an excellent mode of transport.
My latest exhibition Hapyhazard furthers my ongoing search to find balance within contrasting visual methodologies - each painting being in simultaneous states of coming together and falling apart.
Catalogue essay by Joey Hespe 2021
The art of Michael Gromm provides a conduit between the memories that inform his practice and the instinctual impulses that govern his creative ethos. On first glance, Gromm’s work appears abstract, like the hand of Pollock has flicked and splattered the canvas in a flurry of expression and emotion. But it’s on closer inspection his marks take on a life of their own. Lyrical, poetic and mechanical in form, they blur the boundaries between art forms. What appears as haphazard marking, is in fact quite the opposite. Gromm’s ability to pair seemingly random markings with deliberate strokes creates a visual splendor seeping with the artists’ memories, emotion and lived experiences – simultaneously camouflaging and revealing information as the viewers eye is led on a journey around the canvas.
While the title of the exhibition references Gromm’s proclivity for jumping from one motif to the next, Hapyhazard connotes a fantastical voyage through the artists’ experiences of the last eighteen months. From living a tropical lifestyle on the idyllic Islands of Indonesia, to being jolted back to a pandemical 2020 – vistas of swaying palms and wanderlust replaced by the inertia of lockdowns and hotspots. Describing his style as an ‘eclectic ensemble of styles and painting processes', Gromm’s is a style that is uniquely his own. Unlike artistic techniques that require a heavily methodological approach, Gromm doesn’t plan or structure his paintings. Instead, he allows an automotive process to inform the progression and arrangement of each work.
Viewers who are familiar with Gromm’s art may well recognise recurring patterns and mementos that appear throughout his works. Heavily influenced by the history of painting, the artist is constantly fascinated by the limits of paint and how the medium can be used to connote meaning and direct his thoughts. High-key candy stripes are contrasted with free flowing and gestural marks, revealing the artists need for balance and order. Placed within the abstract context of each work are small realistically painted pictures. These perfectly replicated images act as a window to the inner workings of Gromm’s mind. Pop culture, art history and photos from his camera roll create a permanence of memory that references humanism and everyday life. In My mum works for eleven hours, and I did about five, a solo candle burns – an homage to Gerhard Richter's Candle and Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation – a nod to both vanitas Symbolism and to his love of good music. With titles drawn from that of his immediate environment – from conversations he overhears in the local café and stories he reads in the newspaper, it’s apparent Gromm is an intimate observer of the world around him.
For the viewer, there is a compulsion to probe into the paintings of Hapyhazard, to understand the artist and his world – his observations and knowledge and his ability to amalgamate myriad of styles into an aesthetic narrative. A deeper engagement with Gromm's work is rewarded with an insightful and memorable experience.
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Michael Gromm holds a Bachelor of Fine Art degree from the University 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). Gromm was selected to exhibit in FLG’s Exploration exhibition in 2015 and was subsequently awarded the FLG Emerging Artist Award. His works are held in collections in Singapore, USA and across Australia. He has been exhibiting with FLG in 2016.
