Through materials gathered from altered landscapes across Hawaii, Kainoa Gruspe transforms fragments of rock, stone, and plant matter into works exploring extraction, resistance, memory, and the possibility of change.
Walking through the Whitney Biennial 2026, materials often become more than the physical substance of an artwork. They become carriers of history—holding traces of the places, environments, and systems from which they came.
Kainoa Gruspe’s work is rooted in this relationship between material and land.
Gruspe gathers materials from sites across Hawaii that have been transformed by extractive systems, including military bases, golf courses, and resorts. Fragments of rock, stone, and plant matter are removed from these landscapes and brought back into his studio, where they are transformed and given new forms.
Materials That Carry History
The origins of these materials are essential to understanding the work.
They come from landscapes that have undergone significant physical and social transformations. By incorporating actual fragments from these locations, Gruspe brings the land itself into the artwork.
The material is therefore not neutral.
Each fragment carries a connection to a particular place and to the forces that have reshaped it.
Holding the Door Open
For the Biennial, some of these gathered materials are transformed into doorstops.
It is an ordinary object with an unexpectedly powerful symbolic function.
A doorstop holds something open.
Within Gruspe’s work, that simple action suggests the possibility of future movement—of keeping open a space for change, intervention, and reconsideration of the systems that have shaped these landscapes.
The gesture is modest, but its implications are much larger.
Weight and Transparency
The doorstops also physically anchor Gruspe’s paintings.
Their solidity and weight contrast with the translucent surfaces of the paintings, creating a relationship between heaviness and lightness, stability and movement.
The materials gathered from the landscape become literal anchors.
This physical relationship reinforces the conceptual one: history has weight, even when its effects are not immediately visible.
Fishing Lures, Survival, and Deception
Fishing lures also appear within Gruspe’s work.
These objects introduce another layer of meaning.
A fishing lure is connected to sustenance and survival, but it also functions through attraction and deception.
Their presence points toward the complicated histories of the landscapes Gruspe examines, including places that once served as sources of food for local communities but have since been transformed through other forms of land use.
The lure therefore becomes both an object and a metaphor.
Land as Material and Subject
Gruspe does not simply represent these landscapes.
He works with physical fragments taken from them.
That distinction gives the work a particular immediacy. The histories being explored are embedded within the material itself.
Rock, stone, plant matter, translucent painting surfaces, and fishing lures come together to create a conversation about what happens when landscapes are transformed—and what possibilities remain afterward.
Within the Whitney Biennial 2026, Kainoa Gruspe’s work becomes a meditation on land, extraction, resistance, and possibility—a reminder that even the smallest fragment can carry the weight of history while holding open the possibility of something new.
Explore the Complete Tarik Talk Whitney Biennial 2026 Series
Tarik Talk created dedicated coverage of every artist featured in the Whitney Biennial 2026, with individual episodes exploring the artists, artworks, histories, and ideas shaping this edition of the Biennial.
The complete series—including videos and podcast episodes—is available across Tarik Talk’s podcast streaming platforms and social media platforms, offering a closer look at every artist featured in the Whitney Biennial 2026.