For our second event, we partnered with our friends at lifestyle platform, Milk & Uni, to bring their SUPPER CLUB experience to NYC and feature our Andrea Grau — Inner Echoes exhibition. The evening included cocktails by LALO Spirits, a 3-course candlelit dinner inspired by the artist’s Peruvian roots and crafted by the talented chefs at Pia’s Plate, natural wine by Famille du Vin, followed by a fiesta with DJ Pipe Zav.
Andrea Grau — Inner Echoes
Curated by Amanda Garcia
As abstract artist Amy Sillman described, “[abstraction] is not an illustration, it’s not a representation. It’s an experience of understanding certain types of physical and formal relations: space, color, time, weight, heaviness, lightness, ugliness, beauty”. Andrea Grau’s practice embodies this perspective as she engages with abstraction to explore themes such as pain, love, life, sadness, chaos, resilience, transformation, and uncertainty. Her work incorporates an intense, aggressive, bold, and sometimes calm exploration, navigating the interplay between materials and their resistance in order to nourish her improvisation.
Grau approaches her art intuitively: “my work is a performative process that suggests the presence and importance of my body, which engages with the whole piece through movement and gestures as I create.” Her emotionally charged works, such as Pain (2023), feature a gestural vocabulary developed from internal visions, often revealing a calligraphic character, or a unique grammar inherent to her art.
Creating in a hyper-present state of awareness, Grau observes the constant change and transformation around her, as well as within her, and attempts to reflect this in her pieces.
Failure and mistakes are integral to Grau, offering freedom and opportunities to transform failed works into new creations over time. Her process begins with an unclear destination, allowing the painting to take shape and express itself organically. She then spends time with the work, observing what it communicates and seeks to convey.
Inner Echoes portrays the imaginative ideation that reverberates within the artist’s mind while creating, but also the exercise at large, inclusive of the many bouts of cotidianidad, or everyday influences, as well as the interludes of doubt and questioning – a process the artist enjoys overall and seeks to represent. Ultimately, Grau intends to continue developing and creating works that exceed her expectations, works so large or vivid that they scare or unsettle her.
The exhibit Andrea Grau — Inner Echoes was on view for one night only at the Milk & Uni x ALA Projects Supper Club in NYC on November 16th, 2024. Following the event, remaining available pieces may be viewed and acquired online via the ALA Projects website – www.alaprojects.com — as well as through Artsy.
To view available works from this exhibit, visit the Collect page.