German abstract painter Katharina Grosse makes a big splash in her first exhibit with the powerhouse Gagosian Gallery on West 24th Street.  Grosse is big on color and scale, and there is no surface or structure she can’t transform into an immersive experience. At the blue-chip, cavernous space in Chelsea, Grosse showcases several large-scale paintings and a sculpture in a fantastical array of awe-inspiring color swirls. The works are visually transportive, leading the viewer on a journey into paradisiacal realms. Forgoing a paintbrush for a spray gun, she blasts acrylic paint onto canvases, conceiving color stories with intensity and imagination.

© Katharina Grosse und VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2017. Photo by Rob McKeever. Courtesy Gagosian.

© Katharina Grosse und VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2017. Photo by Rob McKeever. Courtesy Gagosian.

Canvases are actually quite traditional for the Berlin-based artist, as Grosse is most known for transforming decaying architecture into renewed, bright and surreal sanctuaries. Last summer, the highly Instagrammed art installation, ‘Rockway,’ which was commissioned by MoMA /PS1, Grosse converted one of the deserted buildings at Fort Tilden into a candy cane-colored beach shack with crimson sand. Ravaged by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, Grosse provided the abandoned space with a visual breath of fresh air before it was demolished. Grosse similarly executed this at Prospect New Orleans in 2008, where she turned a post-Hurricane Katrina house in the Lower Ninth Ward into a dreamy orange crush.

Katharina Grosse

Untitled, 2016

Acrylic on canvas

114 3/16 x 76 inches / 290 x 193 cm

(GROSS 2016.0014)

© Katharina Grosse und VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2016. Photo by Jens Ziehe. Courtesy Gagosian.

Katharina Grosse

Untitled, 2016

Acrylic on canvas

114 3/16 x 76 inches / 290 x 193 cm

(GROSS 2016.0009)

© Katharina Grosse und VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2016. Photo by Jens Ziehe. Courtesy Gagosian.

Grosse states, “a painting is simply a screen between the producer and the spectator where both can look at the thought processes residing on the screen from different angles and points in time.” She hits this notion head on in her Gagosian debut, creating a visually powerful dialogue in the process.

Katharina Grosse will be on view through March 11, 2017 at Gagosian on West 24th Street in New York City.

Katharina Grosse

Untitled, 2016

Acrylic on canvas

118 1/8 x 229 15/16 inches / 300 x 584 cm

(GROSS 2016.0021)

© Katharina Grosse und VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2016. Photo by Jens Ziehe. Courtesy Gagosian.