Now I Know You, 2023

Jake Grewal is a London-based artist known for his painting and drawing practice which explores the male nude and natural world through a queer gaze. His works have a dreamlike quality, expressing widely felt yet intimate, emotional themes. For Grewal’s edition for House of Voltaire, the artist has worked closely with a leading London print studio which specialises in etching. Grewal has produced a series of two original fine art etchings. This edition features a pair of figures within an unknown, beach-like landscape. The combination of sepia tones and size of the edition recalls historic photographic image-making, further adding to the sense of layered memories and experiences. Unmoored from any specific time or place, Grewal’s dream-like scenes are spaces of desire and projection, where the artist’s exploration of self opens out into narratives surrounding the fractious relationship between humans and nature and the search for an idealised place of queer communion. Grewal’s figures appear at once in harmonious cohabitation with their natural surroundings. They are seemingly on the verge of being consumed by them, an ambiguity that imbues his works with an atmosphere of quiet uncertainty and longing. This edition has been made exclusively to support Studio Voltaire’s artistic and public programmes.