Despite these fears, in 2007, as he begins to finally break through what he calls the “glass ceiling over the Northwest art scene,” Grosowsky’s work is gaining more notoriety than ever, selling in prestigious galleries and grossing upwards of $20,000 a piece. With his ambitions set on more national exposure, he hopes to place his work in the established art communities of New York and San Francisco.
But in this rise to success there is a formula, a safe and consistent approach to painting that has ensured Grosowsky healthy profits as a career artist. The subject matter and style of his paintings follows a distinct pattern. A lone character dwells between shadows, staring into the backdrop or outside the frame. The colors are consistent, parrying the middle ground in favor of stark contrasts. The moods are intense and dark, with the exception of his vivid landscapes, which Grosowsky says are his least favorite works.
“He kind of blends an old-master type of image and re-modulates it into a contemporary form,” says Bob Kochs of the Augen Gallery in Portland, Oregon, where Grosowsky showed his work for about fifteen years before shifting his sights toward more lucrative markets. “His style resonates with a large quantity of collectors,” Kochs says. “We did fairly well with him all the way through.”
Above: Grosowsky poses with recently completed paintings in his Eugene, Oregon, studio. Their subject matter reflects his dominant motif. Below: Grosowsky is untied 300 feet above the ground on the top section of Zebra to Zion. The partial “free solo” was in preparation for an un-roped ascent of the entire route on a later date.
On a gloomy winter morning in December 2007, Grosowsky enters the bistro at the Midtown Market Place in Eugene, Oregon, pausing to shake the hand of an acquaintance and then a fan before he reaches the barista counter. It is 9:00 a.m., the time he arrives to get his coffee everyday.
Across the room, a group of middle-aged women whisper that he hasn’t even stopped to glance up at his own painting.
Grabbing the day’s paper, he sips from his cup and makes his way to a table against the wall in the main pavilion of an adjacent room. He sits facing the fireplace, below a spanning oil painting. It features a bright architectural landscape in which a woman leans on a white railing under marble columns and arches, looking out over a Mediterranean body of water. Her back is to the observer. Vibrant accents of yellow and red make the image pop from its frame. Grosowsky dons his glasses, crosses his leg, and opens the paper. Across the room, a group of middle-aged women whisper that he hasn’t even stopped to glance up at his own painting or any of the other five large-format pieces in the room he’s produced over the years.
When he moved to Eugene in order to climb at nearby Smith Rock, Grosowsky lived with a friend and waited tables to support his unorthodox lifestyle. For one of his first public works, he painted a large mural in the restaurant where he worked for years as a waiter before landing a job as an art instructor at Lane Community College.
In teaching, Grosowsky settled and achieved his “proudest accomplishments.”
“He genuinely enjoys giving instruction and witnessing success,” says Grayson Revoir, one of Grosowsky’s most successful students in recent years. “When you show dedication to what he’s teaching, he relates to you in a different way. He touches you.” Revoir is now in his first year at The Cooper Union, arguably the world’s best art school. Grosowsky helped him get there through mentoring and paying for his personal portfolio photographer to shoot Revoir’s work. “He gets excited when he sees the same commitment that he has to his own work,” says Revoir.
His roles as a teacher, artist, climber, and wirewalker, along with his frequent patronage of the university town’s bars, have made Grosowsky somewhat of a local legend. A seedy local rock-tavern, The Black Forest, features a fish tank stocked entirely by Grosowsky — added ambiance for his visits. He’ll disappear into his loft studio in town, emerging days and dozens of canvases later. But Grosowsky is always the same as before he entered, consumed by the need to feel more fear, more heightened awareness.
On the day he turned thirty, Grosowsky practiced the walk at Monkey Face again, beginning in the morning and ending as the sun fell toward the horizon. As it set, he looked back at his climbing partner, perhaps in need of affirmation. “I think that if you want to do it, you should do it right now,” his friend told him. Grosowsky gathered himself, his harness laying on the rock close by. This was the moment he’d been practicing for during the previous three years. He was going to try balancing the high wire unprotected.
Walking to the edge, he placed one bare foot onto the cable, then the other, and so on until he had slowly and awkwardly balanced his way halfway out across the rift, swaying uninhibited in the wind. Maintaining his focus and keeping his gaze on a fixed point to help his balance, he crept along the remainder of the line, stepping off safely onto the other side.
“Once you take the first step and get going, you’re committed; in that way, it’s no different than accomplishing most things in life,” he says. “I don’t clearly remember what it felt like, but when I stepped off at the other end, I was completely speechless.”
This accomplishment exemplifies the drive that has led Grosowsky to experience and understand certain reaches of human physicality. “More ‘well-adjusted’ people think that this is really unhealthy human behavior. And I can understand that perspective. Maybe it is in many ways,” he says. “But I’m completely captivated by that kind of virtuosity.” Sandahl can attest. “It’s always his goal at the end to try and do a walk without protection,” he says. “Because for him, that’s the true test.”
On a balmy Friday morning in the early spring of 2007, Grosowsky free soloed the final quarter of Zebra to Zion, a classic Smith Rock climb ending atop an exposed vertical flake of basalt that hangs about 300 feet above the ground. Rehearsing for a planned free solo ascent of the entire route’s length on a later date, Grosowsky wanted to feel comfortable soloing the section of intense exposure at the top.
When he topped out after the rehearsal solo ascent, he sat quietly next to his gear on the summit, his hands shaking as he reached into his pack, pulling out and lighting a cigarette. It took him several moments to calm down as adrenaline coursed through his body. Then he smiled and started to laugh.
Somewhere in between that slab of rock at the top of Zebra to Zion and the backyard in Carbondale, Illinois, Grosowsky’s life grew into something extraordinary. But whether that growth translates into greater success as an artist on the national level depends on the judgments of audiences in bigger cities. Still, he remains undeterred. “When I set out to do something, I will not be denied,” he says.
Above: A finished piece sits in Grosowsky’s Eugene studio.
