OCEANOGRAPHY

Natural history and portraiture inspire Victor Grasso’s newest series of paintings.

- ROCHELLE BELSITO

Victor Grasso’s imaginative paintings often sit in a gray area. The imagery can shock or delight and make the viewer ask endless questions. That exploration takes them beyond the first visual impression and allows them to think about how the elements combine to tell wondrous narratives. Leaning toward the imaginative realm in his artwork, Grasso says he paints scenes that are “improbable but not impossible” with the realistic style being the entry point.

Grasso grew up in a New Jersey beach town, so his love for the ocean developed at an early age and it has often inspired his artwork. This includes his newest series of paintings, titled Oceanography, which was recently on view at SOMA Gallery in Cape May, New Jersey, where the artist lives. The show, featuring eight paintings and a number of studies, was designed all at once from ideas in his sketchbook.

“I knew that I wanted to go back to the really heavy focus on sea life, and so I picked some things relative to the area and some stuff that was just big, bold and fun to paint,” he says. “I was really trying to combine natural history with societal portraiture.”