CONTEMPORARY ART STOCKROOM Michael Gromm

Like a kind of organic computer cache, the mind instinctively seeks to categorize and compare, looking for order and meaning within its surroundings. Michael Gromm’s large fluid paintings seek to arrest this process and instead suspend the viewer in a state of preternatural ‘nowness’. Gromm’s new series, entitled Pause, aims to create moments of visual and mental spaciousness, capable of encouraging creativity, reflection and calm within an increasingly complex and rapidly changing world.

I have an innate fascination with what is not known, and enjoy those moments when my eyes perceive things incorrectly. Those moments, usually out of the corner of my eye, when a few shapes or movements blend together to trigger a response from my consciousness. My works delve into the unknown and form unplanned, unending puzzles; a game of charades for both me and the viewer. However, among the puzzles there exists an overarching awareness that sets the direction of my works, and strikes a fundamental balance between letting the paint do as it wants, and making it do as it is told.
Michael Gromm 2015

Jarring our reading of the information before us, hyper-real, graphic images nestle within streams of colour, causing us to consider new narratives that may not have been previously possible. A broken down, crumpled car sits abandoned within a blob of blue, where multi-coloured ribbons spill out from it onto the rest of the canvas. Thoughts of materialisation, over-consumption and the decline of Australia’s automobile industry come to mind. (The artist has spent many years in Geelong, a city that has been greatly affected by manufacturing industries move to off-shore). Or perhaps more acutely is it a sign that the fast paced, high-octane existence we have enjoyed will soon come to a bittersweet end? It is within these abstract spaces that we have an opportunity to consider our relationship with the environment & begin to articulate new answers.
Extract from essay by Melanie Caple 2017

Michael Gromm completed his Bachelor of Fine Art degree in 2002 at the Univeristy of Ballarat. He has exhibited widely over the past 13 years, staging solo exhibitions and being included in numerous group shows in both Melbourne and Geelong. Gromm 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).

In 2015 Gromm was selected to exhibit in FLG's Exploration Exhibition for emerging and unsigned artists. He was awarded the FLG Emerging Artist Award in 2015 and held a very successful debut solo exhibition with FLG in June 2016, with works entering collections in Singapore, USA and across Australia.

CATALOGUE ESSAYS:
Disco End Ever, by Phe Luxford 2016
Pause, by Melanie Caple 2017