ARTY GRIMM
UNTITLED | 98 X 71 INCHES | ACRYLIC ON CANVAS
UNTITLED 23014 | 59 X 39 INCHES | ACRYLIC ON CANVAS
UNTITLED 23024 | 59 X 39 INCHES | ACRYLIC ON CANVAS
The evocative canvases of Dutch painter Arty Grimm skate close to representation but never quite leave the abstract realm. Like the work of cubists and abstract expressionists who were inspired by prehistoric and ancient art (Picasso, Miro, and Twombly, among others), her paintings seem to reach deep into cultural time, unearthing forms from the collective human consciousness — monoliths, totems, and organic figures suggesting fruits or flowers. Grimm has frequently spoken of art as a method for making beauty out of chaos, a “sieve” that chaos, or randomness, can fall through and end up transformed. Her definition of beauty, however, as shown in her paintings, is not frozen perfection, but rather an embrace of chaos itself — a way to contain the unknown while preserving its wildness.
Helen Frankenthaler, whose amoebic images Grimm’s sometimes resemble, believed that “a really good picture looks as if it’s happened at once … one really beautiful wrist motion that is synchronized with your head and heart, and you have it.” Grimm would no doubt agree. Her paintings are born in moments of inspiration, the result of often unconventional tools (a tree branch as a brush, for instance) and an almost dance-like private performance of gestural painting. Her recent works contain shapes resembling blocks of stone — hulking yet somehow graceful, they seem to conceal a mystery. And in a sense, they do: the mystery of their making.
Grimm was born in Rotterdam in 1950 and lives and works in Amsterdam. She studied at the Academy of Art in Jakarta, Indonesia, and has exhibited her work throughout the Netherlands as well as in Spain, Germany, Slovakia, Belgium, Argentina, and the U.S., including at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Ibiza, Spain; the Jan van der Togt Museum in Amstelveen, the Netherlands; and the Danubiana Meulensteen Art Museum in Bratislava, Slovakia.
SELECTED SOLO & GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2023 Recent Paintings, Caldwell Snyder Gallery, St. Helena, CA.
2019 Recent Paintings, Caldwell Snyder Gallery, San Francisco, CA.
Art Market SF, Caldwell Snyder Gallery, CA.
2018 35th Anniversary Show, Caldwell Snyder Gallery, San Francisco, CA.
2015 Caldwell Snyder Gallery, San Francisco, CA.
Art Market SF, Caldwell Snyder Gallery, CA.
2012 ML Design Gallery, Garnier, Damme, Belgium.
2010 ML Design Gallery, Knokke-Le Zoute, Belgium.
2009 ML Design Gallery, Antwerp, Belgium.
2007 Galerie Wild, Frankfurt, Germany.
2006 Museum voor Moderne kunst, Ibiza, Spain.
2002 Museum Danubia, Bratislava, Slovakia.
Palau Can Gomis, Barcelona, Spain.
Col. Arquitectos, Santiago de Compostella, Spain.
2001 Museum Danubia, Bratislava, Slovakia.
Delaive Gallery, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Galerie Wild, Frankfurt, Germany.
Galerie Pieters, Sint-Martens-Latem, Belgium.
2000 Galerie Delaive, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Galerie Rayuela, Madrid, Spain.
Museum van der Togt, Amstelveen, Netherlands.
1999 Fundación de arte Recoleta, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Museum de Pon, Leusden, Netherlands.
Delaive Gallery, KunsrRai Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Art Cologne, Delaive Gallery, KunstRai, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
1997 Delaive Gallery, KunsrRai, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Art Cologne, Delaive Gallery, KunstRai, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
1996 Delaive Gallery, KunsrRai, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Art Cologne, Delaive Gallery, KunstRai, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
1995 Delaive Gallery, KunsrRai, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Art Cologne, Delaive Gallery, KunstRai, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
1994 Museum van der Togt, Amstelveen, Netherlands.
Delaive Gallery, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Art Cologne, Delaive Gallery, KunstRai, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
1993 Delaive Gallery, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
1992 Museum Singer, Laren, Netherlands.
