The Fantastical Florida Realms of ALINA GRASMANN

Bestiary (Room 8), 2022, Oil on canvas, 130 x 180 cm

Alina Grasmann (b.1989, Munich. Live and works in Munich, Germany) is a realist painter whose large-scale, site-specific series blur fact and fiction. Her works are inspired by architecture, literature, and film. Each series contains about 10–15 paintings, all based on specific locations.

Grasmann researches places and then visits them in real life, recording her experiences and the atmosphere through photographs. Drawn to the narratives of each place, she compares the reality and sensation of the place with the way she imagined it would be, then makes interventions by changing or adding objects, or erasing parts. Rather than illustrating existing myths about a place, she aims to create space for association so new stories emerge.

Grasmann lives and works in Munich, Germany, having studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. Grasmann’s work has been exhibited at several museums in Germany, including Kunstverein München, Galerie der Künstler, and Hubert Burda Media.

In this interview, Grasmann discusses the six works currently on display at London gallery Niru Ratnam. They are a part of her Florida Räume series, and the exhibit will be up through June 24, 2023. This is her debut solo exhibition in the UK.

Interview by Tyler Nesler

The works for your Florida Räume series appear to go back to 2021, and the works on view for your current show at Niru Ratnam in London seem to be a newer extension of the series. What initially inspired your Florida Räume paintings, and why have you continued to create more works for the series?

I have had it in mind to paint 10 rooms for this series from the very beginning. I just feel more comfortable with numbers like 10, 15, or 20 paintings per series and also the series feels more complete to me like that.

I dedicate each room in this series to one large-scale painting and one small-scale painting that show different perspectives on the same space or situation. In all of my 10 rooms, there are always moments that allow you to jump back and forth between the individual paintings or go from one “room” to another.

My work process is generally very time consuming, so it's not unusual for me to spend two years on a series. For the show at Beacon last year, I just decided to start with the Grand Buffet series and continue later with Florida Räume.

However, I always develop the concept of a series before I start it. For Florida Räume this meant that I already had each room planned in my head, not in every detail, but the essential elements were already clear to me. Rooms 8 through 10 are currently on view at Niru Ratnam, a total of six works, three large-scale paintings and three small paintings. With this exhibition, the series is complete.

All the Fires the Fire, 2022, Oil on Canvas, 130x180cm

Most of the works in your Niru Ratnam series appear to be set in or around a specific house and its grounds - what was the inspiration for this location? Unlike your 2022 Fridman Gallery show, The Grand Buffet, which was based directly on Haus Schminke in Germany, did you use an amalgamation of locations in Florida to create the environs for the Florida series? What were your challenges with creating fictional spaces versus referencing a specific place as a setting?

While in my other series I deal with real existing places e.g. in the series Sculpting in Time with the desert utopia Arcosanti, in The Montauk Project, with Montauk on Long Island, in my series Florida Räume I try to build a new fictional place from different places and scenes that I have collected in Florida – It is ultimately a place that can be anywhere and nowhere. Florida is everywhere.

Untitled (Room 8), 2023, Oil on Canvas, 25 x 35 cm

The six paintings in this show are all connected by a seemingly frozen moment in time, indicated by the Dali-esque melting clocks in “Untitled (Room 8)”, which are stuck at 2:22 - what is your attraction to the depiction of multiple spaces all coexisting in the present but seen from different perspectives?

Time plays a very important role in all my works. For me, it’s a special moment every time you look at the clock and all the numbers are the same. This time of 2:22 in the series is like an entrance into these rooms, with one way in and no way out.

Painting cannot occupy a period of time; it always represents a single moment in time. I deal with the levels of time in different ways in my different series. In the series Florida Räume, the marker “2:22” is for me the rabbit hole to a fictional place where there is always presence. In each room, that is, in one of the two works, the time or a time reference appears, such as the illuminated sign “Always Open,” but mostly I simply use 2:22. The time is also an anchor point through which one gains access to the rooms in order to move back and forth between them. It would be ideal if all 20 works of the series could be seen at once and the viewer could move freely through all ten rooms.

There but Where, How (room 10), 2022/23, Oil on Canvas, 130 x 180 cm

The titles of each painting invoke the writings of the Argentinian fabulist author Julio Cortázar - could you discuss why you chose his writing as a direct reference to the works?

In preparation for this series, I intensively studied the literary concepts of the genre of the fantastic. I was particularly fascinated by the short stories of Julio Cortázar.

In the worlds of fantastic literature there are always moments when different levels of reality intersect, when the past becomes present, or the future becomes past. Just as in Cortazar´s short story “The Continuity of the Parks”, for example, a man reading a crime novel suddenly becomes a victim within the narrative of his reading. I try to intertwine different levels of reality. It is of great interest to me to apply the literary concepts of the fantastic to painting and thus to stretch this moment on the canvas, captured in time, as far as I like.

Untitled (Room 10), 2023, Oil on Canvas, 25 x 35 cm

There are multiple references to and depictions of famous artists and works visible throughout this show - Brancusi’s Endless Columns, Dali's “The Persistence of Memory,” David Hockney's “A Bigger Splash,” Rodin's “The Kiss.” Why did you choose these references in particular, and how do you think they fit together thematically for Florida Räume?

The art references are mostly works that I am currently engaged with or that have a special meaning for me as an artist. In my painting, I always try to get closer to the feeling I myself experienced when I was in a certain place. And that's exactly what I often accomplish better when I include such emotionally charged objects in my paintings.

The objects serve as a vehicle for me to approach the truth of the place that I felt. In painting, this creates fictional places, scenes that never really looked like that. But as in poetry or literature, the paintings are meant to resonate with a greater truth between the lines than would be possible in a true-to-life depiction.  

But of course, some of the art references also serve as anchor points that connect the various works and spaces. In all the ten rooms there are always moments that allow you to jump back and forth between the individual paintings, to walk from one “room” to another.

For example, in “Untitled (Room 3)”, you can see a pool with a splash outside the window. In the large painting of room 4 “Blow up” I depict a pool view with the same splash - this could be just the same place and again the exact same time (2:22).

In room 7 “The idol of the cyclades,” someone has left an open book with the image of Hockney's “A Bigger Splash” on the lounge chair. In room 10, “There but where, how”, a closer look reveals a note hanging on the diner's window with the image of the exact same Hockney painting on it.

The Hockney motif also recurs on another level throughout the series. For example, I borrow the famous pattern Hockney used to simplify the movement of water in his Swimming Pool paintings and use it for the wallpaper in the restaurant (rooms 5 and 10), pillowcases, and beach towels, among others.

Also, the clocks showing the time, the objects, etc. give a clue to the connectedness, togetherness, and simultaneity of the rooms. The world in the paintings lingers rigidly in a fictional present, while the various anchor points that connect the paintings set in motion a contrasting circular movement between them. An endless movement that is also reflected, for example, in Brancusi's Infinity Columns.

 (Click here to view more works from Grasmann’s Florida Räume)

Untitled (Room 9), 2023, Oil on Canvas, 25x35cm

Photo by Damian Griffiths

How do you think your Florida Räume series also connects to your other recent series, such as The Grand Buffet and Sculpting in Time? Are there any cross-references to your own work present as motifs in the same way you incorporate the works of Brancusi, Hockney, Rodin, etc.?

As already described, I reverse my concept with which I approach my subject, i.e. the place depicted. Nevertheless, for me, little changes in my painterly approach and questions.

For example, comparing Florida Räume with my previous series, The Grand Buffet, both could be described as chamber plays, to use a term from the theater world - in both series, a subtle narrative is closely tied to a specific place. While in The Grand Buffet series the house I use as a backdrop exists as it is, in Florida Räume I build that backdrop myself. Nevertheless, for me both the series and depicted places are equally true.

Check out our previous interviews with Alina Grasmann.

Florida Räume will be on display at Niru Ratnam, London, through June 24, 2023.