Exhibition Guide

Visual Description

“American Grit” is a vertical oil painting on linen, measuring 95 inches by 76 1/2 inches, of a muscular adult figure who does not have legs. They rest on a blue stool at the center of the canvas and gaze outward toward the viewer from the corner of a boxing ring. The figure is angled slightly to the right and their skin tone is rendered in grayscale. They are bare-chested and have defined pectoral muscles, and their muscular arms are held loosely in front of their body. They wear white boxing gloves, which graze the top of the boxing ring’s canvas. Their boxing gloves have black detail around the edges of the straps, and the figure wears red boxing shorts with two dark blue lines running along the waistband. The shorts bunch between their body and the stool on the right side of the figure and hang freely on the left side, flowing over the front of the stool. The figure’s line-up buzzcut is the same length as their trimmed goatee. Four ropes of the boxing ring are visible behind them: from top to bottom, one is red, two are white, and the last is blue. These ropes extend out to both sides from a white, padded post corner placed directly behind the figure. The canvas of the boxing ring is gray, and the background beyond the ring is a solid black. Light falls on the figure, as if they are beneath a spotlight. The lighting creates dark shadows to the left of their boxing gloves.