Interview
Claudia De Grandi
Claudia De Grandi is an UK based artist concerned with how artists address globalisation and unity in the modern world. She grew up in São Paulo state in Brazil and has lived in Britain for over 30 years. De Grandi paints pure emotions, the brushes are delicate and the colours deep. Her ethereal abstract paintings suspend time and location, the paintings recall upon the viewer's memories and feelings. Her large canvases are a process of application and removal, colour on colour, observation and memory applied in a minimalism style. She calls upon introspection and a place that no one else knows apart ourselves. Her works can be found in private and public collections around the world from the Americas, Europe to Japan.
What is your background and how did you start your journey in the art world?
“I was born in Brazil and have been living in the UK over 30 years. I graduated in Fine Arts with a master degree by the University of the Arts London - Camberwell. My very early art practice and education was in music. I studied the piano for about 12 years in my native country Brazil. But I also loved drawing imagined faces and landscapes. Life took a different course and I ended up coming to the UK in my early 20's. It wasn't till my early 30's, I decided to explore my passion for visual arts as a form of expression and my love for the arts of painting and drawing. I became very curious and wanted to learn more about performance art and painting. Perhaps, I was trying to fit too much in but I had to let it run its course. So, this is how my journey in the art world. I became more focused and determined to making art and to enter fully into the process to discover what was driving my curiosity. Art for me is a vehicle of communication of a deeper part of me. What I can't say in words I can say in my paintings and what I am discovering is that the arts is a limitless process, continuously growing in understanding my relationship with the world.”
What inspires you?
“My curiosity inspires me and I follow it wherever it takes me. When I am curious about something I get inspired. It happens at anytime - going for a walk, reading a book, playing music, observing nature around me - it can even happen when I'm trying a new yoga posture!”
What themes do you pursue? Is there an underlying message in your work?
“I am a lover of beauty - trying to convey the beauty in what I see and experience. My intent is to lead the observer to feel the presence of feeling within. My paintings are very quiet as you can see, you know it's not busy. The colours and composition, and all the rest of it, are serene and subdued - thus to invite the viewer to take time to observe.”
“I am a lover of beauty - trying to convey the beauty in what I see and experience. My intent is to lead the observer to feel the presence of feeling within.”
How would you describe your work?
“So, out of all that I have described of what moves and inspires me, I think I can say that my work is a contemporary mixture of abstract, transcendental spiritual and representational all at the same time! It describes something without giving too much details. There is also an aspect of iconography, for instance the use of the depiction of the moon in my paintings.”
Which artists influence you most?
“When I started to study the arts more precisely I wasn't familiar with all the art movements of the 20th century. I was behind, except for the few well known names like Picasso and Matisse and some French impressionists, my knowledge was limited. Then, I came across the Abstract Expressionists and Minimalism - I was blown away! Their use of colours and freedom of expression captivated me. I wanted to absorb as much as I could about Jackson Pollock, then I came across Rothko and Franz Kline. The size of their works and the colour fields is something that has stayed with me. Then I went into a more romantic phase because I was looking at the English landscapes and the Seaside views. I fell in love with James Abbott McNeill Whistler romantic nocturnal paintings and JMW Turner for his subtlety of colours and abstraction. After that, I was drawn to the minimalist black paintings of Ad Reindhart and the drawings of Sol Lewitt. Finally, I include the modernist Pieter Mondrian and the amazing Brazilian Modernist artists Beatriz Milhazes, Adriana Varejao, Gabriela Machado and of course the architect Oscar Niemeyer. I also thought a lot about oriental iconography, mainly Japanese artists with their use of calligraphy as well as their view and concepts in representing nature.”
What is your creative process like?
“My process reveals as a mixture of observation, memory and abstraction. I use mainly oils but for some of my work I used graphite, watercolour and gouache. It is all a very intuitive process and the layers are very very subtle.”
What is an artist’s role in society and how do you see that evolving?
“Being an artist is not easy in the current world , but in truth I don't think it has ever been easy to be an artist. The art industry is changing ever so rapidly especially with the use of social media. I think it will ultimately be good but as it evolves it is going through a reshuffle of old structures to new ways of doing things in terms of being seen and exposed. However, the art itself is still waiting to be freed. Art has been locked in institutions and in some ways controlled and manipulated for the sake of some other reason other than The art itself. It is still in a political and financial power hold but it must be freed to realise its true purpose to benefit humanity in a more altruistic way.”
Have you had any noteworthy exhibitions you'd like to share?
“'Beyond The Shorelines' was a solo exhibition in Bermondsey, London 2022 I put together with the help of patrons, sponsors and friends. It really put me to the test of how artists have to brave the world outside their studio and be their own self without fears or doubt. To do the whole gig of a solo exhibition is not an easy task but it is incredibly rewarding.”
