Grace Thresher is an artist, designer, marketing creative and events coordinator living and working at Port Waikato. Currently providing illustrations, design and marketing for a growing group of clients from her home-studio, Grace works with a variety of media including pen, pencil, photographic manipulation, photography, collage and paint. Her creative inspiration comes from nature and her aim with each piece is to bring out the precision and detail she sees, encouraging the observer to similarly lose themselves in the viewing experience.

Grace graduated from Elam School of Fine Art in 2013, immediately co-founding Circle Gallery & Studio in Newmarket Station Square with a University colleague. Together they reinvented the space, which began as an empty concrete box, turning it into a working studio and exhibition space hosting emerging and local artists. This invaluable experience, alongside her fine arts degree, helped shape Grace’s future within the arts by offering a stepping stone to actualising exhibitions, imagining event spaces, connecting to the community and working with other like-minded individuals.

After a spell overseas, working on yachts in Greece and living in London for a year, Grace returned to New Zealand in 2018 reinvigorated and determined to pursue a creative career. Since then she has hosted one-off pop up exhibitions with an artists’ collective founded by herself and two friends. Named Lost Space Project, this initiative aimed to enliven spaces that were in states of transition or disuse, connecting these spaces to the local community through art. The Project was a conversation about place, change, transience, opportunity and the transformative power of creativity.

Grace worked full-time as the Gallery Coordinator at Māngere Arts Centre Ngā Tohu o Uenuku from 2020, also coordinating and curating two other Council owned art spaces; Te Oro in Glen Innes and Fresh Gallery Ōtara. Grace’s next roles were Marketing Coordinator at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki and Social Media and Communications Coordinator for Waipā District Council. These roles have helped Grace successfully plan and run a multiplicity of creative events whilst coordinating large numbers of people from many different industries and backgrounds.

Throughout this time, Grace has continued to produce artwork, exhibit, organise events and attend art markets. After first exhibiting at the Lake House Arts Centre in 2013 she became both organiser and participant there in 2021 for Beneath the Surface. Grace has shown her work at Corban Estate Arts Centre and Open Table Café Ellerslie as well as previously exhibiting at the Upstairs Art Gallery in 2021 as part of the multi-media group show, 6° of Separation.

Artist Practice and Exhibition Statement

‘Focus’ – the centre of interest or activity; also, the state or quality of having or producing clear visual definition and adapting to the prevailing level of light; becoming able to see clearly.

Through her work, Grace aims to express the movement and feeling of nature’s ever evolving, breathing, changing splendour. Bringing particular attention to the details, intricacies and textures within natural forms. Grace’s practice is driven by a love of line and colour, in aquatic and terrestrial life. An exploration of the patterns and shapes of the living world through drawing, painting, photography and collage.

Beginning with an idea, Grace may jot down a rough sketch, take a photograph or manipulate multiple images, sample a print or cut out images to create a collage as the initial conceptual draft. Often the final piece will have taken on a life of its own and its origination in that initial conception will be as an indistinct memory long before charted.

Grace’s more recent works are inspired by the sea - living and working through the seasons on the West Coast where the Waikato’s currents mix and muddy the Tasman’s salt surf - the ocean break’s roar always on the wind. All of her works are multi-layered and multi-faceted, applied with care and consideration to convey meaning in media through richness and depth.

Recurring motifs in Grace’s works are shells, time and the elements, coral, flora and fauna – her pieces are personal explorations of the interactions of natural phenomena, based on studies from life and intimate observation.

Find out more:

Website: www.gracethresher.com

Instagram: @gracethresher

Facebook: @gracethresher

Email: gracethresher@gmail.com

Pinterest: @gracethresher