“Commissioned specifically for Walyalup Waters, Grace has created a series of five oil on wood paintings that examine the relationship between femininity and the underwater realm. Exquisitely rendered, each work is a portal into a darkly alluring submerged space, where floral fabric, female bodies and flowing hair merge with marine biomass. Grace’s work draws from her direct experiences freediving in local waters and each composition is created through double-exposure photographic manipulation before being painted. The resulting imagery features female-underwater hybrids that are in an ambiguous, perpetual state of emergence, rebirth and transformation, intertwined with notions of maritime mythology and superstition. Grace’s new series continues her aim to re-present the historic link between femininity and nature through intuitive creative processes that draw on myth and allegory”.

- Words by Erin Coates (visual artist).