Jake Grewal

Under The Same Sky

Jake Grewal (b.1994, London) draws from European canons of landscape painting, deftly harnessing the languages and structures of Romanticism. His works to date have varied from depictions of vivid, verdant forests to charred, clouded terrains. Within them, Grewal situates nude, primarily male subjects, building contemplative spaces for queer intimacy and desire.

For Under The Same Sky, Grewal has produced a significant series of new paintings, informed by two residencies over the past year. The artist embarked on a sustained research period in India, and later a month-long residency exploring coastal landscapes at Porthmeor Studios in St Ives.  

Located at the shifting threshold between land and water, the shorelines and seascapes that ultimately appear in Under The Same Sky often seem untethered from an exact time and place. 

While this new body of work draws a line through to histories of plein-air painting, his compositions also distill an expansive personal library of visual references, from art historical sources to found imagery. Agilely employing a lucent palette, the artist translates light, form and colour in the surrounding landscapes. 

The exhibition is anchored by The Ceaseless Cycle of Erosion, 2024, Grewal’s most ambitiously scaled work to date. The curved canvas, almost six metres in length, gives substantial movement and momentum to core thematics, expanding his studies of transformation and the passage of time. 

Within this work, Grewal’s figurative subjects seem to emerge from their surroundings, at times receding into the brushwork of the rock formations. It is not immediately clear whether the artist has depicted a group of men, or otherwise a single figure caught moving across the composition in fleeting, transitory moments.

Grewal’s expressive, almost cinematic handling of these settings capture the expansiveness of the coastal environments. Equally, his works evoke an interior, psychological world, in which explorations of nature, portraiture and identity coalesce. 

The ambiguity of the artist’s scenes test tensions between past and present, isolation and companionship, to convey human fragility and its communion with nature.

Exhibition Introductions, 15 minutes

Studio Voltaire Assistants lead introductions to the exhibition every Saturday, from 3–3.15 pm. We welcome questions, responses and discussion. Please meet at the gallery entrance. Drop-in, no booking required.

With special thanks to Major Exhibition Donor Simon Nixon

Headline Supporter: Arif Suherman
Lead Supporters: Thomas Dane Gallery and Alison Deighton
Exhibition Patrons: The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund, Joshua Silver and Russell Tovey
Exhibition Circle: Samuel Lewis, Gianluca Longo, Giacomo Negro and Sandesh Sivakumaran. With kind assistance from Simon Oldfield

  1. Jake Grewal (b. 1994, London) lives and works in London. Solo exhibitions include: Some days I feel more alive, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, England (2023); Now I Know You I Am Older, Thomas Dane Gallery, London, England (2022). Group exhibitions include: Voyage, Morena di Luna, Hove, England (2024); Drawing Biennial 2024, Drawing Room, London, England (2024); Interior, Michael Werner Gallery, London, England (2022); Shifting Waters, Jhaveri Contemporary, Mumbai, India (2022); Drawing Attention: Emerging British Artists, The British Museum, London, England (2022); Dissolving Realms, Kasmin Gallery, New York NY (2022); Drawing Biennial 2021, Drawing Room, London, England (2021); On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Jhaveri Contemporary, Mumbai, India (2021); Deity, Arusha Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland (2020); Everyday is Sunday, UTA Artists Space, Los Angeles CA (2020); No Time Like The Present, Public Gallery, London, England (2020).

  2. Jake Grewal, Under the Same Sky, 2025. Installation view at Studio Voltaire. Images courtesy of the artist and Studio Voltaire. Credit Sarah Rainer.