Spokane Review
July 6, 2000
Lorinda Knight Gallery Spokane, WA
VISUAL ARTS: Artist's 'Dependence' on display
Much of Gail Grinnell's mixed media collage work, opening Friday at the Lorinda Knight Gallery, is heavily influenced by her "domesticity," says the Richland native.
With her studio in her home and an 18-year age span between her oldest and youngest children, Grinnell finds her artistic rhythms mimic domestic work. She combines how she lives with what she knows about painting and printmaking to create delicate fabric and paper hangings.
"For me, the motions of making art are the same as the motions of everyday living," says Grinnell. "Buttering a piece of bread is the same as gluing paper onto a square of silk."
She frequently hangs freshly painted collage pieces on clotheslines—just "like doing laundry."‘
The "laundry" hanging this month is a body of work called ‘Dependence’—more than a dozen pieces of transparent silk organza, layered with woodblock imprints, collages and paints. The work features strong vertical and horizontal lines of varying widths, imaginative shapes and a riot of color.
To add another dimension, Grinnell suspends her work a short distance from the wall so that a shift in air currents can play with the delicate constructions.
Grinnell lives in Seattle and is a featured artist this month in the Distinguished Alumni Art Exhibit at the University of Washington's Jacob Lawrence Gallery. Last year her installation "Out of Whole Cloth" was exhibited at the Spokane Art School.