Helen Grimm Turns Her Attention to Moths
Insects become a subject for painting and for exploring profound questions
PROVINCETOWN INDEPENDENT
BY ABRAHAM STORER JUL 12, 2023
Moths recently invaded Helen Grimm’s Truro studio. They flutter across a group of small canvases lying on a table and cover her large-scale paintings lining the walls. On some canvases, they are illuminated against midnight blues. In other works, they are camouflaged, sometimes rendered with quick brushstrokes, other times scratched into the surface of impasto paint. They clamor and beat their wings at the same speed with which Grimm paints. Despite all this visual noise, there’s something quiet and delicate in the way they float and rise, weightlessly alighting on her surfaces.
Infinite Possibility by Helen Grimm. (Photo courtesy the artist)
It was on a trip to Italy in April that Grimm began observing bees and became curious about integrating insects into her art. She had been working with inanimate imagery, mostly shells and rocks. “Before I knew it, moths just started pouring out,” she says.
Like her earlier work, the moth paintings deal with repetition and multiplicity. Her paintings, regardless of size, are cropped in a way that suggests an expansion beyond the confines of the canvas.
“They are a snapshot of a fleeting moment in time,” says Grimm. The rocks and shells, often depicted at the shore’s edge, are in flux, moved by water and weather. In one such painting, Infinite Possibility, a collection of marks moves in a diagonal composition as if falling at the viewer’s feet. The movement within the composition is matched by Grimm’s touch. Her paint handling is lush and hurried. Some marks coalesce into identifiable oyster shells; other passages are abstracted and unfinished.
