ACROSS THE WATER

The new work in this collection is comprised of Grenon's trademark no-holds-barred approach to narrative and color. His recent integration of Bullseye Confetti Glass adds additional layers of movement, dimension, and expressiveness to several of Grenon's reverse paintings on glass. The imagery portrayed in Grenon's work is powerfully direct and startling sensitive; embodying multiple narrative layers at once. A uniquely candid point of view underscores all of his portraits, giving the viewer a glimpse into the inner lives of his subjects and revealing moments of insecurity, determination, quietude, strength, and stoicism.

Grenon was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts, Visual Arts Fellowship for painting and his work can be found in collections such as the Boise Art Museum, Boise, ID, Microsoft Corporation, Museum of Glass, Tacoma, WA, Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK, Portland Art Museum, Permanent Collection, Portland, OR, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA, Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, WA. His work has also been included in exhibitions at The Montreal Museum of Fine Art, Montreal, Quebec and the Bellevue Art Museum, Bellevue, WA.

Gregory Grenon lived in Detroit, Michigan with his mother and father and three sisters for twenty-five years.  When Grenon left there, he was a working artist in what is known as the Cass Corridor, where artists made art and did not talk about art.  He then lived in Chicago, Illinois and worked as an assistant printer from 1973 to 1975 at Landfall Press,  It was there Grenon learned about color- it was there where he was finally sure that he would be a painter, not a teacher or printer.

Tired of the large, dirty, crowded cities of my life, Grenon moved to Portland, Oregon, where he found that he could not escape the art inside of himself.  Throughout Grenon’s career as an artist, he has concentrated on the Face of Women- moving slowly toward the figure with special attention to the hands, never thinking he would ever sell these pictures- Grenon just kept making them.  Growing up in an emotional world, he uses this emotion of his life in the life of his painting.