In this episode I caught up with Mallorca-based painter Grason Ratowsky to discuss his newest series ‘Fragmented’. The series explores fragments of memories, experiences, and imagination rooted in neo expressionism.

Ratowsky’s vision in these works captures what he has been experiencing during Covid and he has merged the lines between neo/abstract expressionism (with surrealism and figurativism). Each viewer is able to review an unknown truth to weave one’s own personal emotional value and story.

Ratowsky’s works are physical representations of the extruded subconscious. Fragments of memories, experiences and imagination come forth to compile uniquely schematic arrangements that invite the viewer to move into a space of speculation.  

Rooted in neo-expressionism, the process involves a surge of wild strokes to a given surface with little end intention in mind. Once the vision begins to reveal itself, steps of deduction and abstraction ensue to finally highlight and exemplify form and figure. In this way, Ratowsky does not hold a definite intention to paint objectively. Rather, he paints what lies in between and what’s between the lines.

When a figurative object placed in a scene is brought to life in his paintings, it is not the figure itself that he is translating but the emotion it evokes. He highlights the soul of the scene rather than the universal comprehension of it.