Accompanied by a conversation between the artist and Andrew Bonacina and an essay by Philip Hoare, this book, published on the occasion of the eponymous exhibition at Studio Voltaire, London, also features the paintings and drawings that informed Jake Grewal's past exhibition at the Palland House Gallery, Chichester, and Thomas Dane Gallery in London.
Jake Grewal (born 1994 in London)'s work explores the intertwined themes of landscape, identity, and queer embodiment. His paintings and drawings often depict solitary figures in natural settings that blur the boundary between the external world and inner emotion. The landscapes—misty forests, coastal horizons, and shifting terrains—act less as backdrops and more as psychological spaces where intimacy, vulnerability, and transformation unfold.
Central to Grewal's practice is the relationship between human fragility and the cyclical processes of nature. Through motifs of erosion, water, and changing light, he reflects on time, memory, and renewal. His figures—often nude and rendered with tenderness—suggest both exposure and belonging, merging with their surroundings in ways that evoke the fluidity of identity and desire.
Grewal's sensibility is deeply informed by his queer and diasporic experience. Rather than addressing these identities overtly, he weaves them into the emotional and atmospheric texture of his paintings. The result is work that feels both personal and universal: meditations on longing, connection, and the search for home within the self and the world.
