About Artist Calvin Grimm

As an abstract Expressionist painter, I engage in an individual dialogue with each canvas -- a dialogue that is not predetermined, rather spontaneous and informed by years of in-depth personal experience with the forces of nature. I draw from first hand knowledge of how physical, therefore visual, dynamics are continuously repeated in vast and varied macro and microscopic worlds. It is not my goal to clearly define a particular setting, rather to draw from all to create harmonious and tensioned juxtapositions that remind and permit us to have our own dialogue with these forces. "His work comes from a biomorphic expressive abstraction which he carries into his own energetic and richly inventive mode."*

My paintings, while largely based in nature, freely involve the emotions. A painting’s evolutionary process can be read in each gesture, each edit, each character.

The approach of calling upon large and small similarities can be seen in my ongoing series: “Deep Ocean/Deep Space” where canvases as large as five by six feet draw us into free flowing environments that offer us an opportunity to surrender a need to know if we have entered a world of phosphorescing jellies or gaseous nebulae. This notion of macro/micro worlds is supported by four decades of series such as the "Old Sea" series, begun in the 60s, renewed in the 80s and continued in recent paintings titled "My Heart is on That Ship Out in the Ocean" and " Sea of Acceptance"..."Grimm is continuously inventive on the macro level (i.e. overall image) and on the micro level (i.e. the individual parts and instances within the work)." *

In my early twenties, I designed and built my mountain home and studio in the historic art colony of Woodstock, New York, where I paint today. As wilderness educator, mountaineer and horseman, I've explored many extraordinary environments.

Paintings are found in private, corporate and institutional collections worldwide.

"Grimm's painting is an exciting expressive mode with many fresh inventions and nuances that carry his personal energy and rhythms -- richly explosive and exploratory at the same time."*

* Sara Lynn Henry, Distinguished Professor of Art History, Emerita, Drew University

Biography
courtesy Jennifer Farley for hubpages

The Long Island native began visiting Woodstock, where his grandparents had a home, when he was only two weeks old. Although he has spent much time in the wilderness areas of Wyoming and Alaska, when his father died of cancer at the relatively young age of 54, Grimm used a 1967 inheritance of $2,000 to purchase two acres in rural Shady - a mountainous hamlet just west of Woodstock - where he built what has evolved into a 1,600 square foot home and art studio widely considered one of the area’s most charming folk houses.

“I was in my early 20s, and working seven days a week with a carpentry crew in Woodstock, having studied art education in Buffalo. I knew how hard my father had worked to leave me that money and I wanted the security that my own home would give me,” he said.

Avoiding debt, Grimm built his place using many reclaimed materials, including old barn beams, long before this was fashionable. His house features a 5’ x 7’ skylight which was once part of a Ford automobile dealership showroom. The unique residential foothold, with its low carrying costs, enabled Grimm to pursue a lifelong art career, myriad outdoor sporting adventures, and volunteer for projects including the restoration of the 106-foot-long Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, touted as America’s flagship environmental organization, built in 1969 at the behest of legendary folk singer
Pete Seeger.
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Painter and environmentalist, Grimm's organically grounded paintings reveal a personal collaboration with the forces of nature.

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