
Nicolas Grenier
We Hung Out Where Others Left Their Words, Unspoken And Forgotten, 2018
Oil on canvas
84.5 x 104.5 in.
Nicolas Grenier
Perspectives, 2018
Oil and acrylic on canvas and wood
63 x 63 x 2.5 in.
Nicolas Grenier
Harm / Get Harmed / Give Up, 2018
Oil and acrylic on canvas
80 x 60 in.
Nicolas Grenier
Monuments, 2016-2018
Oil and acrylic on canvas
60 x 75 in.
Nicolas Grenier
The Growth, 2018
Oil and acrylic on canvas
40 x 50 in.
Nicolas Grenier
Selected Absolutes (III), 2016-2018
Oil and acrylic on linen
40 x 50 in.
Nicolas Grenier
Mutual Exposure (II), 2018
Oil and acrylic on wood panel
40 x 30 in.
Nicolas Grenier
Remembrance Pit (Memorial For Political Crimes), 2016-2018
Oil on wood panel
16 x 22 in.
Nicolas Grenier
More or Less Happy Camping, 2018
Oil and acrylic on wood panel
14 x 11 in.
Nicolas Grenier
Vertically Integrated Socialism, 2015
Single channel video
43:00 min.
Installation View of Nicolas Grenier: Dumfounded Prophets
Installation View of Nicolas Grenier: Dumfounded Prophets
Installation View of Nicolas Grenier: Dumfounded Prophets
Installation View of Nicolas Grenier: Dumfounded Prophets
Installation View of Nicolas Grenier: Dumfounded Prophets
Installation View of Nicolas Grenier: Dumfounded Prophets
Installation View of Nicolas Grenier: Dumfounded Prophets
Installation View of Nicolas Grenier: Dumfounded Prophets
Installation View of Nicolas Grenier: Dumfounded Prophets
Installation View of Nicolas Grenier: Dumfounded Prophets
Over the last eight years Nicolas Grenier's practice has evolved into an ecosystem that includes paintings, architectural installations, lecture-performances, and experimental economic models. In Dumbfounded Prophets, Grenier continues his ongoing exploration into the aesthetics of abstraction in relation to systems of power and its effects on the individual. Informed by his multidisciplinary approach, Grenier has integrated a meticulous crafting of color and pictorial space with a deft understanding of diagrammatic language sourced from architecture and design, management strategies, and theory. His new paintings relay concepts, experiences, and emotional states—in some instances presented within cryptic anecdotes and in combination with various strategies of organizing space—in order to communicate the complexities of mediated human experience. Grenier’s work also addresses the philosophical and moral dimensions
inherent within political thought and action. He identifies moments when the attempts to control meaning through form expose ideological idiosyncrasies, revealing the honesty, absurdity, beauty, and pitfalls of rationalization and dogmatism. This idea is beautifully illustrated in a series of texts that circumscribe the margins of the painting Perspectives (2018) in which an unidentified narrator implores:
DON'T GET SO ANGRY AT THEM,
THEY'RE JUST CAUGHT UP IN A PERSPECTIVE THAT'S SO DIFFERENT FROM YOURS,
THEY DON'T SEE THE HARM THAT THEY'RE DOING.
In Dumbfounded Prophets, Grenier situates art as a tool through which to consider the discrepancies between theory and practice.