John Grade’s drawings, sculptures and installations are weathered, marked, worn and disintegrated. Made of reclaimed wood or paper, the works are buried for termites to devour, sunk into a bay to collect barnacles, or hung in forest trees for birds t o eat.Grade’s work represents our changing environment. An attraction to travel and to the land shapes the work, mirroring pattern s found in nature, such as wasp nests, erosion, honeycombs, rocks, trees and the passage of time. Grade invites natural forces to erode and change the work and its material, e x ploring both control and disruption and risk and measured thought. The works beg in from an ex - perience – a reaction to place and history or a trek into the landscape, whether it is the old growth forests of the Pacific Northwest or the hills of Iceland.
