I've always been so impressed by the way Grace Weaver can make the most mundane of life situations feel grandiose. This has been the case since she came onto the scene nearly a decade ago. From running errands, to literally jogging, to eating a meal, to now doing laundry, Weaver creates a narrative that is both universal and personal. There is something quiet about each work, but also something quietly chaotic under the surface. And the scale, how she paints larger than life on large canvases shows a sort of swirling energy in her brushstrokes. The works may seem like simple acts of life but there is something strong and moving in each work.
Earlier this year in Marfa, she opened a body of work called Indoor Paintings, that played with the viewer's senses by flipping the scenes on their head and around the clock that gave a sort of jarring visual experience. For Laundry, her new show at Soy Capitán, Berlin, there is a swirling movement to the works, like a simple act being scaled to something majorly in need of perspective. As the gallery notes, "The paintings often begin with a quotidian object, activity or interaction and usually depict a variant or model of the modern woman who isn’t necessarily Weaver herself, but perhaps reflects, as Weaver says, surrogates of surrogates of surrogates of herself, as she walks, runs, runs errands, shops, chats or cleans."
Perhaps that is it. Weaver makes the mundane so grand because she is thinking about the impact of the role she plays in her own life. The self being able to self-analyze when the action is turned to chores, when life is in the in-between moments, when something as common as laundry becomes the most profound moment of our day. It's the minutiae that Weaver so elegantly paints, and Laundry continues to put us in a spin. —Evan Pricco
