Grace Wright

I am interested in how abstract painting can enable an experience of spirituality for the viewer, born from a fascination with the disconnection from authentic experiences common in our digital age. Scale and gesture enable the viewer to experience their own physical body in space, thus strengthening their connection to the present moment.

The coiling, tangled gestures echo the rhythmic, cyclical nature evident in universal forms. This pulsating rhythm was a key methodology I engaged with in my practice. As a female body performing gesture on a support, I would enter a ‘transcendental’, ‘no-mind’ state, allowing the painting to come through me.

The acute scale and baroque atmosphere with its shrill diagonal forces and dramatic chiaroscuro lighting, references monumental, religious paintings such as altarpieces as objects of desire or worship.

I sought to create paintings that overwhelm the physical body, requiring intense physical labour in my own, female body.