Ronald Griggs - Family Ties
Ronald Griggs, Madonna and Child, 2021, mixed-media on paper, 18 x 24 in
Ronald Griggs, Centaur Woman (After Gustav Klimt), 2021, mixed-media on paper, 18 x 24 in
Exhibition Dates: May 1-31, 2025
Location: PASC Detroit Gallery, 9301 Kercheval Ave, STE 2, Detroit, MI, 48214
Gallery Hours: Th, Fr, & Sa, 12– 5 pm and by appointment
Curated by Anthony Marcellini
Ronald Griggs – Family Ties is the first solo exhibition surveying Detroit-based artist Ronald Griggs’ art practice from his start in the PASC program in 2021 to now. The exhibition explores Griggs’ detailed and highly skilled mixed-media drawings, employing a baroque-like drawing style to explore human and non-human relationships, family, fantasy, and the complexities of love.
When Griggs started at PASC in the summer of 2021, his initial images were somewhat traditional, mainly portraiture or religious imagery, such as depictions of the Madonna and Child. Yet his portraits, which were often drawn from references, from baroque portrait paintings to images from National Geographic magazine, were always transformed into something more familiar, perhaps the faces of Griggs’ family and friends.
Sometimes, when several figures were placed together, Griggs would include accents unique to his style, such as scent trails, a subtle atmospheric connectivity depicted as thick grey lines traveling from one individual’s nose to the other’s mouth, and sometimes their posterior. These scent lines were delicate indications of the complexities of Griggs’ practice, which staff had not yet scene explored to its fullest. As PASC staff and Griggs became more comfortable and familiar with each other, PASC staff would encourage him to explore his imagination and provided him with diverse reference imagery, until what has become his most signature images, centaurs or human animal hybrids, began to appear.
Ronald Griggs working in PASC Detroit's former Beaufait St studio, circa November 2021.
As Griggs’ practice has expanded, with the encouragement and support of PASC staff, we have seen his artworks go in several directions, from more sexually explicit group centaur scenes, to personal portraits, to images that appear like cropped stills from erotic films, to touching tableau's of families and individuals engaging in the rituals of daily life, like riding the bus or watching TV. Overall, what has become the dominant motif of Ronald’s work, regardless of its sexually explicit or wholehearted nature, is that each piece is a depiction of love, of a striving for both human and non-human connections.
Ronald has exhibited at PASC Detroit Gallery, Detroit, MI (2024/25); Signal-Return, Detroit, MI (2024); BasBlue, Detroit, MI (2024); MOCAD, Detroit, MI (2023); NIAD Art Center, Richmond, CA (2023); the Detroit Repertory Theatre, Detroit, MI (2022); Art Enables, Washington, DC (2022); PASC Detroit Pop-Up Gallery (2022); The Scarab Club, Detroit (2021); the PASC Southgate Gallery, Southgate, MI (2021); Make Studio, Baltimore (2021); and one online exhibition with PASC (2021). His artwork has been featured at the art fairs Open Invitational, Miami, FL (2024), NADA, presented by White Columns Gallery, Miami, FL (2024), and at the Outsider Art Fair, presented by Shelter, New York City, NY (2025). His artwork is in the permanent collection of the Cranbrook Art Museum.
Launched in 2021, PASC is the first progressive art and design studio and exhibition program in Detroit and Wayne County dedicated to supporting artists with developmental disabilities and mental health differences to advance artistic practices and build individual careers in the art and design fields. PASC is a program of Services to Enhance Potential (STEP), a non-profit service organization founded in 1972 that provides services and support for more than 1,400 individuals with disabilities and mental health differences across Southeastern Michigan.
