Grosse's artistic evolution

KATHARINA GROSSE'S ARTISTIC EVOLUTION  

Katharina Grosse (b. 1961) is a graduate of the Düsseldorf Art Academy, where she studied with Gotthard Graubner and Gerhard Richter. At the time, Richter was occupied by the photorealistic style of painting. Grosse, however, was fascinated more by the potential of abstraction. She was searching for a type of painting that would both incorporate its surroundings and the ideas about space and volume in painting.

After graduating, Grosse found that her paintings often grew in size. She tended to adapt them to the architecture of the space where they would be shown. If the wall was big, she would paint a painting to match and develop a similar strength of two and three dimensional space. One day she happened to look up into a dark corner of the room she was working in and thought there really ought to be a painting there, too. It dawned on her at that moment that she was more limited by architecture if she was exclusively painting on canvases than if she was using architecture as part of her art.

From that point on, she started painting directly on actual architectural surfaces and spatial objects, which she became internationally reknown for.She has been hugely successful doing so at a long list of biennials, museums and art spaces the world over.

This page presents a selection of Grosse’s past works, making it possible to chart the development of her art from graphic-like paintings to large room installations.