An Interview with David Oliver aka Grip Face
Jun 22, 2024
- By
Blaire Dessent
An Interview with David Oliver aka Grip Face
Jun 22, 2024
- By
Blaire Dessent
Born in Palma in 1989, David Oliver was intuitively drawn to creativity from a young age, first through cartoons and animation and later, as a teen, to street art and the style found in the skating community. His early experimentations with making art came with drawing on the grips of his and his friend’s board grips, thus leading to his name ‘Grip Face’, that he has been using for nearly 2-decades. His work soon developed off the boards and into the gallery space, where his large-scale murals, sculptures and installations fuse digital animation with freestyle drawing and painting. Now, in his mid-30s, he presents a large solo exhibition with La Bibi Gallery, where, for the first time, works signed by David Oliver sit alongside those by Grip Face. This confrontation with his own identity as an artist marks a new phase in his career and offers an intimate look at Oliver’s unique practice.
BD
When did you first connect with visual art and realise it was what you wanted to do as a career?
DO

My first contact was through some comics that I discovered at my neighbourhood school. I was about 8 or 9 years old and I started drawing at home from that moment onwards. As a child, I wanted to be a comic artist when I grew up, but little by little I realised that what interested me most was telling stories with other media.

David Oliver aka Grip Face in his installation at La Bibi Gallery
“Sashimi consciente en la cabaña de cristal, (my algorithm without me)”, Installation view at La Bibi Gallery, 2024
BD
When you were growing up on the island, was there somewhere you liked to go to that inspired your budding artistic voice?
DO

As a child I never went to any museum or gallery. There were not many cultural stimuli in my house when I was a child. I remember that animated series and comics were my sources of inspiration during childhood and preadolescence.

BD
Would you talk about your name Grip Face and how that developed?
DO

The pseudonym comes from the world of skateboarding, during my adolescence. I started drawing on the "grips" of the boards that some friends and I skated on, and they began to call me "caradelija", so I appropriated that name and later used it in interventions by the city. Being a very shy person, with certain problems relating to relationships, I used it as a kind of armour against my fears and anxieties.

Grip Face working on a mural for his exhibition, “Sashimi consciente en la cabaña de cristal, (my algorithm without me)” at La Bibi
“Sashimi consciente en la cabaña de cristal, (my algorithm without me)”, Installation view at La Bibi Gallery, 2024
"Now is a time of transition where I am exploring other conceptual and artistic paths that I want to address and also wanting to leave behind the "mask" a little and show the most intimate part of work."
“Sashimi consciente en la cabaña de cristal, (my algorithm without me)”, Installation view at La Bibi Gallery, 2024
BD
Duality is an integral part of your practice – whether playing between digital and analog themes, or in materials, oil vs digital photography, for example, but also your name. I was intrigued by your current exhibition with La Bibi, “Sashimi consciente en la cabaña de cristal, (my algorithm without me)” which seems to have works ‘signed by’ by Grip Face and others by David Oliver. Would you talk about this play with identity and exploring different themes and concepts through two different artistic personas?
DO

Yes. Duality has always been present in my work. I am a very eclectic person in my tastes and references. It is very explicit in my way of working, with different visual languages, concepts and subjects. In this double exhibition that I have presented in La Bibi, it is the first time that the character and the person were brought together in the same space, generating a dialogue to close the conceptual and personal circle. I have been working under the pseudonym "Grip Face" for 15 years. Now is a time of transition where I am exploring other conceptual and artistic paths that I want to address and also wanting to leave behind the "mask" a little and show the most intimate part of work.

BD
You are from Mallorca but are currently living in Madrid…how is the Spanish capital inspiring your work these days?
DO

Madrid has been in a cultural "buzz" for several years. There are many things happening in the capital today. From the first minute, I felt very welcomed here in the city and I also feel that it is a great source of inspiration. I am in search of balance, and sometimes I need to escape outside of Madrid to get out of the visual saturation and feel in contact with nature.

BD
You have done several public murals in cities such as Madrid and Barcelona. Is there a public mural in Mallorca we can see?
DO

I think there is one intervention remaining, from the project: "Not rented to humans", that I carried out in 2018 on some cabins that are half hidden in the centre of the island.

BD
You have your show with La Bibi now, but is there an upcoming project that you can tell us about? Are you travelling much for your work these days?
DO

Yes, this summer we have several projects. Next week I will participate in the Can Ibiza art fair, together with the Moisés Pérez de Albéniz Gallery. In July, I am preparing a curatorial exhibition in Belgium with the Verduyn gallery, and in September I will participate in the Kiaf fair in Seoul with La Bibi.

BD
When you are back on the island, is there somewhere or something you love to do?
DO

I like to take my dog ​​"Dolç" for walks in the mountains and take a swim in some of the coves in the north of the island with friends.

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