Grace Culley

Hailing from regional Victoria, Grace Culley is a young Australian artist investigating the various roles repetition plays in contexts like trying to understand oneself and the surrounding environment. Her works are made through labour-intensive processes, emphasising how repetition can intensify sensations such as pleasure, escapism, discipline and damnation.

Her practice is characterised by skilled line work - which extends beyond intricate pen drawings and into sculptures made of bent metal bands sewn together with wire, and sinuous paintings rendered in airbrush. 

Based on freeform research that favours looking at connections between a broad range of ideas, Grace’s works are motivated by her excitement about relationships and patterns. She applies her research by selecting a refined group of connected ideas and, through hands-on experimentation, arrives at technical processes which can be expanded into larger groups of works. 

She utilises industrial and common materials like metal brackets, biro pen and newspaper; the muted colour palette that pervades her practice is often determined by the materials she uses. 

Grace chooses to use repetitive processes, which are adapted for each body of works, because the decision to repeat particular actions is a distraction from other repetitive parts of her life that she has less choice over.  

Grace completed a Bachelor of Fine Art (Painting) at the Victorian College of the Arts in 2021. Her solo exhibitions and projects include Closer to Nature at Sutton Projects, Melbourne, VIC, 2021; and Surprised face; Heart Eyes, a major solo commission at West Space, Melbourne, VIC, 2023. Select group exhibitions include Gertrude Studios 2024 at Gertrude Contemporary, Preston, VIC, 2024; The Possibilities Are Immense: 50 Years of the George Paton Gallery at George Paton Gallery, Parkville, VIC, 2024; and Exterminating Pencil Volume 3 at Caspar Gallery, Castlemaine, VIC, 2022. Associated works include a sculpture collaboration with artist Raafat Ishaak exhibited in Ishak’s solo exhibition Eye Looking at Large Glass Broken, Heide MOMA, Heidelberg, 2023.