Ava Grauls

Sail My largest painting to date. Based on one of the first printed maps of the world that made out of a number of parchments because the world seemed too enormous to capture on one. This work was made to be a loose canvas, like a sail. The violence of the age of exploration began the prototype of how Europe sees the world and chooses to represent it. We’ve come a long way towards understanding those who don’t live on this continent but there is always more work to be done. Thanks to @the_koppel_project for the time and space to photograph it. #londonstudio

Adam, washed up on the shore mixed media screen 160 x 180 x 6cm 2025 Animal bones collected from the shores as talisman of the end and the beginning. ‘Death’ in the deck of tarot that foretells of new beginnings. The artwork displays historically butchered animal bones from the carcasses of livestock from the Victorian era and preserved by the anaerobic Thames mud. The work is hinged together, ready to migrate, like a suitcase holds together the debris of the past. Traces of the Thames river and the geological are sewn together in this creolised society. The advent of a new life and the death of the old. Latin adventus ‘arrival’, from advenire = ad - ‘to’ + venire ‘come’. Adam, washed up on the shore. @the_koppel_project #newartworks #londonart

The 'Riff Raff' bowl and lampshade Made of washed up pottery from the riverThames London 2025 'The bowl is not perfect, but it will hold.' All those memories of what makes: 'us' Those fragments of elsewhere Not an island but an extension, a network reaching towards everywhere How wonderful it must be to have so many people who want to be part of your land. #sculptureart #mudlarkingart #londonartist

Title: Splendid Isolation 13 x 13 ceramic tiles 193 x 193cm 2026 1896 was when Sir George Eulas Foster coined the term ‘Splendid Isolation’ he described Britain’s role pre-WW1, that they are an island alone, uninvolved with Europe and its politics. Three imagined maps inspired this artwork: 1635 Blaeu, Willem Janszoon, a Dutch engraver of the first European ‘standard map’ of Southern Africa. The title reads: Aethiopia Inferior vel Exterior Monomotapa translates to Lower or Outer Ethiopia [and] Monomotapa on an animal hide. Where the two men appear to meet equally in friendship and trade. 1576, Sea embellishments from a Flemish engraver Hieronymus Cock in the Spanish commissioned to create a ‘new’ map of America. 1898, George Philip & Son create The ‘Daily Mail’ commercial Cape to Cairo map of Africa tracing the commodities, built and imagined railways. Not the dawn of discovery, nor exploration but the second Age of Invasion (Viking age of invasion being the 1st). European identity firmly staking claim to the continent. Within the map you can see territory claimed by certain explorers like Stanley Falls named after Henry Morton Stanley, commission by the Belgium king to map a route through the Congo to the East Coast. Interrupting Rhodes’ plans to move Southern African commodities through the continent with the Cape to Cairo railway. The seas are choked with the neo-classical European gods and wondering monsters. The ceramic tiles are destined for a bathroom wall, a site for marking territory. Splendid Isolation, however a colonial empire is never quite … alone. The video: cargo train on the Western Cape with ore destined for China and India. #decolonialmaps #decolonialart

Tests with 9 muses Still working through this collection of these old maps. Not quite right but definitely heading in the right direction. #decolonialart

Taking photos of new work … I’m really enjoying photography. I used to be quite terrible at it so it’s been absolutely years of practice. I love this image, it looks so analogue despite being a digital. I worked as a projectionist at the BFI a while back and I accepted the digital take over of things, but it made me fall out of love with that work. I really missed the analogue style of images. Talking with an old friend, he was telling me how the new generations were trying to make more analogue aesthetic works, which is wonderful! There is something so charming about the grain and the light. You can stick Blu-ray where the sun don’t shine as far as I’m concerned. #artphotography

Maps of colonisation in Africa I wanted to make a painting where you could see the rail and transport links on these old colonial maps but also view a reflection of yourself, questioning what are our personal positions on the commodification of Africa and how we have gained from it in Europe. It may be apt that it is painted on copper, one of the metals wildly sought during the “scramble for Africa”. #decolonialarthistoriography #mapart

WIP with this. It is only a 3rd of the way done. #paintingmaps #paintingmapsbeforeitwascool #paintingmapsevenafteritwascool #mapmapmap

Big thanks to @veryaveragespeed Finn Dovey for taking these artists shots.

Framed my last remaining Lombardy paintings. They have been super popular lately and I’m very grateful to my collectors. They were a joy to paint.❤️ #eframeshop #rucresidency Thank you to @artiqgram

71.2520 N 42.2141 W (Greenland) Acrylic and oil on polythene 32x35cm 2025 Map taken from the: ‘Routes of Arctic Navigators’. Artist/engraver/cartographer: Engraved for Élisée Reclus. Provenance: “The Universal Geography”; by Élisée Reclus, Edited by A.H. Keane, Published by J.S. Virtue & Co., London [/Greenland/]. Part of the Laws of Occupation series

WIP