BIO & STATEMENTS
BIO
Greta Grip is interested in the relationship between technology and handmade craft. What is old is new again, with the use of contemporary materials and technologies. Her QR Code and Illumined Wire Series began in 2011. Since then, she has knitted countless rows of yarn and illuminated wire, she plays with the historically, slow and meticulous method of knitting with contemporary, instantly reproducible attained QR Codes. Knitting itself is a code, and knitting a QR code, is a code of a code which raises the question of ‘reading’ an image. A viewer may not realize that these codes can be scanned and information can be gained. The idea that these codes hold a secret, without the “key” messages could never discovered, fascinates her.
Greta Grip enjoys pulling the strings of what is traditional knitting and winding it around the digital age. Grip has hacked her knitting machine. Hacked it by removing its original brain and replacing it with an USB port. From the old methodical method of creating out of wrapping something around a straight edge, she ties this realm into the past, contemporary, and even futuristic world of which we lived, live or will live in. Grip’s knitting practice is continually investigating different avenues of expression through knitting using a diversity in size, and in materials. Since traditionally, knitting is seen as small, isolating, piecemeal work, Greta exhibits an approach which opens the concepts of what can be knitted and to what scale. She plays within such areas as: the Slow Movement, eknitting, Extreme Knitting, Intangibles and Wearables.
Grip has even dreamt that she was once a giant knitting needle.
STATEMENTS
2020 Ottawa Art Gallery: Filtered
Hacking technology to confront contemporary media might not be something you associate with knitting. However, Ottawa-based conceptual textile artist Greta Grip uses this traditional tactile medium to disrupt the glossy bombardment we receive through digital channels.
To make these works, Grip transforms her knitting machine by removing its original “brain” and replacing it with a USB port, filtering her knitting patterns through the computer. “Glitches” resulting from this process become part of the work, seen in As if this matters (2020) and This is not here (2020) -when the machine was supposed to knit this sentence, but it decided not to work. Juxtaposed against slick, overly polished, filtered media, Grip embraces the flaws as an unedited “selfie.”
In her investigation of the relationships between craft and technology, Grip examines the concept of coding, with knits and purls comparable to binary code: a form of communication. Using humour, her work highlights digital miscommunication, made obvious in Unreadable (2017) for example, which depicts the symbol for unreadable digital text, although few people actually understand what the symbol means.
Correspondingly, Grip leaks hidden messages by layering translucent knitted material, or by turning works of art around to uncover the threads behind, exposing hidden metadata that would otherwise remain encrypted.
-Rebecca Basciano and Catherine Sinclair Ottawa Art Gallery
2017 World of Threads Festival of Contemporary Fibre: Hard Twist 12: Yarn, Gladstone Hotel, Toronto, Ontario LINK
Greta Grip explores the relationship between technology and handmade craft. For Hard Twist-12: Yarn, Greta uses her hacked knitting machine to knit three panels (28 x 22 inches each). One panel is a Stand-by symbol, the second is a Hand Wash symbol and finally the third is of a Copyright symbol. Without using words but rather international ISO symbols, which are modern day hieroglyphics, Greta tells stories about the struggle between art and craft, the complexity between’s handy work and industrial reproduction and the pull and push between women and man.
2015 la galerie du nouvel-ontario, POP FOLK T3XT1L3S, Sudbury, Ontario LINK
Dot, Sammy, April, Sara from Forest Row Farm are hand knitted four QR Codes (Quick Response codes), representing four chapters, were made from four sheep: Dot, Sammy, April, and Sara, born and raised at Forest Row Farm. One day four sheep were followed: eating, standing, running, and socializing. Then they were sheared. All of this was documented. The fleeces were processed together. From this yarn four knitted QR Codes were created, each linking the viewer to the sheep. This work relates what you are wearing to what wore it before you, who or what made it so that you could wear it. It was a slow moving day following the sheep, but that was the point. We live a life of instant gratification, with instant results, much like how QR Codes are scanned and information is attained. Capturing this slow process within second with a devise. Grip plays with the historically, slow and meticulous method of knitting with contemporary, instantly reproducible attained QR Codes. A viewer may not realize that these codes can be scanned and information can be gained. The idea that these codes hold a secret, without the “key” messages could never discovered, fascinates her…
The piece Dot, Sammy, April, Sara from Forest Row Farm, are four separate QR codes, each framed separately. They link to separate videos of each of the sheep. Here are links to the videos:
Dot: www.bit.ly/GG001
Sammy: www.bit.ly/GG002
April: www.bit.ly/GG003
Sara: www.bit.ly/GG007
REVIEWS
Le Labo (The Campbell House Museum), POP FOLK T3XT1L3S
https://nowtoronto.com/art-and-books/art/northern-threads/
la galerie du nouvel-ontario, POP FOLK T3XT1L3S
http://www.thesudburystar.com/2015/03/15/sudbury-show-when-clothing-becomes-art-work
2014 World of Threads Festival of Contemporary Fibre: Hard Twist 9: Fibre Optics -Textiles in the Digital Age, Gladstone Hotel, Toronto, Ontario LINK
Greta Grip is interested in the exploration between the relationship of technology and handmade craft. For Hard Twist 9: Fibre Optics, she is exhibiting two projects: A Knitted Swatch for an Illuminated Sweater and Dot, Sammy, April, Sara from Forest Row Farm. Within both of these knitted projects Grip applies the techniques of knitting by using contemporary materials and technology as a means of expression.
A Knitted Swatch for an Illuminated Sweater is a knitted swatch, which is made from two strands of white electroluminescence wire. As a knitter prepares to knit a sweater, the first step is to knit a square with the needles and yarn that are recommended. This square is called a gauge swatch. It is from this small swatch a knitter can check their gauge against the specified gauge in the directions. This is extremely important first step in knitting in order to have a finished product the size of which you intend. This is the first knitted EL wire that Greta has made, since then she has experimented with other EL wire knitting. https://vimeo.com/116117482
Dot, Sammy, April, Sara from Forest Row Farm are hand knitted four QR Codes (Quick Response codes), representing four chapters, were made from four sheep: Dot, Sammy, April, and Sara, born and raised at Forest Row Farm. One day four sheep were followed: eating, standing, running, and socializing. Then they were sheared. All of this was documented. The fleeces were processed together. From this yarn four knitted QR Codes were created, each linking the viewer to the sheep. This work relates what you are wearing to what wore it before you, who or what made it so that you could wear it. It was a slow moving day following the sheep, but that was the point. We live a life of instant gratification, with instant results, much like how QR Codes are scanned and information is attained. Capturing this slow process within second with a devise. Grip plays with the historically, slow and meticulous method of knitting with contemporary, instantly reproducible attained QR Codes. A viewer may not realize that these codes can be scanned and information can be gained. The idea that these codes hold a secret, without the “key” messages could never discovered, fascinates her…
REVIEWS
http://www.textileartist.org/hard-twist-9-at-the-gladstone-hotel-by-karen-darricades/, http://vimeo.com/116117482
REVIEWS
2013 The Tooth Gallery, This Code Bites, Ottawa, Ontario -Curated by Cristina Martinez
Greta Grip merges the art and craft of knitting with the fast paced world of technological production. She creates an interactive space that reminds us of the encoded nature of knitted patterns, numeric images and our body's own generic blueprint. Knitted body parts, teeth and bacteria, evoke the body's functions and disorders with awe and wonder. Grip sharply observes fashion in contemporary culture and purposely engages the heritage of pop art. Her knitted meat dress, composed of fifteen flank steaks along the details of thin white strings, is reminiscent of Jana Sterbak. While her printed textiles and t-shirts with tags such as "KNITTING IS THE NEW BLACK" suggest the humour of Keith Haring's slogans and advertisement strategies. Grip's pleasure in knitting is truly palpable. The sewn QR Codes (hardly ever perfectly square render tribute to the rigour of Piet Mondrian's compositions and Kasimir Malevich's modernist square while at the same time referring to art's close ties with the market. The effect of Grip's codes indeed alludes to the value and dissemination of art, raises the paradoxical question of "reading" an image, and invites us to play. -Cristina S. Martinez May 10, 2013
2012 World of Threads Festival of Contemporary Fibre: Hard Twist 7: Touch Me Feel Me, Gladstone Hotel, Toronto, Ontario http://www.facebook.com/events/368095433266327/
Greta Grip plays with the historically, slow and meticulous method of hand knitting with contemporary, instantly reproducible QR Codes. She hand knits QR (quick response) codes that really work! These QR Codes are from a body of work that is called: Touch Me, Feel Me, Scan Me, they search the meaning of how we are touched, or touch others; how we feel or let other feel us. They were initially created for a textile exhibition in Toronto called: HARD TWIST VII. Grip continues to explore this theme, as the collection of QR’s grows. These codes can be read when scanned with a free application on a smart phone. The viewer can scan the QR’s and receive a message about love, as assortment of text, audio and video links thru youtube. What Grip likes most about this project is that it takes hours and hours to make one, and in just s few seconds the QR Code can be read. From the old methodical method of hand making something out of nothing by using two pieces of yarn and two sticks to the instant information gained by today’s technology. Another aspect of the hand knitted QR Codes is the idea that knitting itself is a code, and translating this knitted code into another contemporary code that can bring the viewer into another world fascinates her. Many times people just enjoy looking at the hand knitted QR Codes, without realizing that they “say” something, without the “key” such as a portable devise, one may never be able to find the answer. This too is exciting; to be able to read code, write code and even create code has become a norm, at least in the kitting world. Greta Grip continues to explore the relationship between technology and handmade craft in her current projects
2012 Cold Cut Greta Grip and Erin Robertson at Wurm Gallery, Ottawa, Ontario
Greta Grip and Erin Robertson play with their food. Meat in particular. Vanitas is a term for 17th-century Dutch still-life paintings often included imagery such as rotting meat, candles and skulls; reminders of our mortality. Jana Sterbak's 1987, Vanitas: Flesh Dress for An Albino Anorectic. Sterbak's intention was to address issues of fashion, consumption and the body, as "you are what you wear".
Cold Cut introduces Greta Grip's Homage to Artist Series which begins with a knitted Meat Dress. This Meat Dress, inspired by Jana Sterbak, was stitched together with fifteen knitted flank steaks. It was then scanned onto machine knitted fabric that can be purchased and worn by many. A QR (Quick Response) Code was generated in order to connect the machine knitted fabric to the hand knitted Meat Dress. Grip plays with the historically, slow and meticulous method of hand knitting with contemporary, instantly reproducible attained scans and QR Codes. Robertson's oil paintings of flesh and bone, in contrast explore the visceral in her interpretation of momento mori.