Nick Grellier
Nick Grellier works across drawing, collage, print, stitch and assemblage using old technologies and low value, worn out materials to counterbalance the speed and dehumanising rush of life. Deteriorating materials are imbued with data, passively demonstrating survival and decay; and ideas about time and memory. The slow and intensive labour of drawing, stitching and gathering splice together past and present, addressing a yearning for time to be slowed. Sometimes the subject of the works are uncomfortable or somber but there is an ingrained edge of playfulness, a vital tragic-comic balance.
MFA UWE Bristol 2020, Associate Artist FLOORING Collective (launch Nov 2020). She lives and works in Stroud.
Works
APPREHENSION
When her mother was six, her grandfather killed himself. He may have been having a love affair, or her grandmother was having one. Or he was an alcoholic, Or he killed his father-in-law in a car crash. He may have had debts he couldn’t pay. There may be very little truth to the story. It may be too late to know.
extract from Cheer Up, Love Nicola Grellier 2020
APPREHENSION 2019 pencil on collage on board 107 x 153cm
CONSUMPTION
She can’t help being bourgeois. She was born that way.
extract from Cheer Up, Love Nicola Grellier 2020
CONSUMPTION 2020silk, cotton wadding and wool 121 x 128 cm
DOMESTIC OBJECTIONS
Her mother had wanted a different life but had no will to change the one she was living.
extract from Cheer Up, Love Nicola Grellier 2020
DOMESTIC OBJECTIONS 2020 digital photograph
no backbone 229/366
She had to practice using the fire escape. She was sixteen. It was the time she found out that she was scared of heights. Her brothers were excited about the whole thing. She had to put the rope in a noose around her torso and climb out of the window. One brother was egging her on by the window, the other one was down below looking up her skirt. She could see that the rope was loose and she was going to drop before the slack was taken up. She couldn’t get any words out and clung to the window ledge. In the end she had to let go.
extract from Cheer Up, Love Nicola Grellier 2020
TODAY 366 drawings 2019-2020 drawing and collage 19 x 19cm each
no backbone 229 is shortlisted for Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize 2020
The year of drawing can be viewed on Instagram @nick_grellier