23 Chunks of Being:
Gregory Grieve’s Experiments in Transmitting Pure actuality
10. Cosmogenesis (2017)
Mixed media
Grieve had a dream that the cosmos was born in a swirl of twirling planets and fluttering pink butterflies. Inspired by the kinetic works of American sculptor, Alexander Calder, Grieve felt that the best way to capture his vision was with this mobile. Because it was a dream Grieve has no idea exactly what it means (if anything). This is the only location in his work where butterflies appear — Butterflies usually symbolize transformation and metamorphosis, so in this piece, they may be signaling a genesis of some type. Grieve does have memories, however, of blue butterflies (Junonia orithiya) fluttering around pony manure during his various treks through the Himalayas. In a long chain of logic, these blue butterflies helped him understand the German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche’s, concept of the genealogy of morals, which questions and critiques the value of our moral judgments. The solar system makes more sense to him. Grieve is obsessed with the creation of the solar system some 4.5 billion years ago. And in an abstract way, he wanted to model how a dense cloud of interstellar gas and dust collapsed due to the shockwave of a nearby exploding star into a spinning, swirling disk of material. Grieve is particularly interested in late Ptolemaic models of the solar system.