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Holly Grace, Resonant Landscape - Distant 2, 2024, blown glass with video projection

Main Gallery 1 - 22 February 2025

Holly Grace – Geography of Place

A solo exhibition of new works in glass

Like many Australians I come from a nowhere place, a stranger everywhere and a child of displacement I am in a constant pursuit of identity and belonging. My family histories are ones of diasporic beginnings, a mass migration and scattering of people from various homelands. Descending from Europeans escaping wars, persecutions, rebellions to find shelter in a new a host land, Australia. My personal history is a mix of cultures, a hybrid blend with a commonality built from geographical location, a sense of nostalgia and dislocation from a country of origin. I am an example of the cultural complexity of being a modern Australian.

The work in this exhibition is the culmination of the past two years and the participation in three artists residencies. the first taking place at the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra, ACT and Gudgenby ready-cut cottage in the Namadgi National Park. The second at S12 Workshop and Gallery, Bergen, Norway and most recently the Canberra Glassworks, Kingston, ACT. All three residencies were different experiences and focuses, enabling me an unique opportunity to explore themes of self-portraiture, portrait of a place and to further develop my technical skills and understanding of glass as a medium.

The exhibition is both a geographical journey and a personal memoir as I seek to understand what motivates and binds us to places within the landscape. How real are these connections, what are its ramifications and how can I tread lightly in an increasingly fragile environment.

Holly Grace, December 2024

Holly Grace’s artworks start with a walk, a solitary traverse into the remote regions of the Australian outback. This time alone in the landscape is an invaluable experience, both challenging and inspirational as she learns more about the natural world and herself. These experiences are documentation initially with the camera and then further explored in glass, becoming both a lens and personal record of this unique environment. Creating a multi-layered glass canvas that is a poetic interpretation of the Australian landscape.

The artist is currently based in Queanbeyan, NSW and creates her large-scale blown glass artworks at the Canberra Glassworks, Kingston, ACT. Grace has a Masters of Fine Art from Monash University has exhibited in venues such as Sydney Contemporary, the Melbourne Art Fair, and the London Art Fair and has had numerous solo exhibitions both here in Australia and internationally. The artist has been collected by various public and private collections, such as the National Gallery of Australia, the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Artbank and Parliament House Art Collection.

In the past Grace has been the recipient for grants from the Australia Council and ArtsWA which enabled her to create new bodies of work and to participate in three International Mentorships. Two of these mentorships took place in Denmark and initiated the artist’s affinity with the landscape, leading to more recent explorations into the Australian Bush. In the past two years the artist has participated in three Artist in Residence, the first through Craft and Design Canberra, the second at S12 Gallery and Workshop, Bergen, Norway and the most recent at the Canberra Glassworks where she produced the majority of works displayed in this exhibition.