Leo Grucza’s visceral, abstract paintings embrace water as an evocative metaphor for a world of all-enveloping, physical sensations.
Defining an existence beneath the surface that separates air and water, Grucza’s inner spaces reflect his personal immersion in the existential vocabulary of abstraction. His heroically scaled compositions deeply affect us because he chooses to transform water into the reality of paint, rather than change paint into the illusion of water. This is an important distinction framing Grucza’s approach. The physical presence of an unseen world – its weight, its wetness, its coldness and warmth – seems to seep through the skins of his streamlined organisms. Changing colors within their bodies – alternating between searing reds and chilled blue-greens – these oblong, monolithic forms resemble unusual, headless creatures that have acclimated to a horizonless environment. The silent, rhythmic motions of these organisms imply that in a world lacking a clear definition of top and bottom a continual infusion of diverse sensory stimuli is required to ensure balance.
from "Primal Submersions," brochure essay by John Brunetti, 2001. Leo Grucza’s 2001 Exhibit at I-Space Gallery, Chicago, IL. Brunetti is a Chicago-based critic and Illinois editor of Dialogue.