• Gow Langsford Gallery is pleased to announce that they are now representing Grace Wright.

Grace Wright's atmospheric paintings are all-consuming, inviting the viewer into a baroque world of tangled gestures. Markings on the canvas twist and convulse about themselves to build an anarchic structure before unravelling to moments of repose. While Wright's gestures may be abstract, she views her paintings as representational narratives, evoking the tempestuous rhythm of the natural world, while alluding to 17th-century religious paintings.

Wright's paintings are a reflection of her world view, her coiling brush marks echoing the 'rhythmic, cyclical nature' she identifies as universal forms in the natural world. Wright marries alluring, harmonious colour with visceral imagery to elevate the feminine to monumental standing. Using scale to her advantage, her paintings engulf the viewer, exuding traditionally masculine virtues of power and strength. 'As a female body', Wright muses, 'I would enter a 'transcendent', 'no mind' state allowing the painting to come through me'. Gestures might then be read as an extension of her body with their pulsating rhythm; a key methodology of Wright's practice.

Grace Wright has recently completed a Masters of Fine Arts at Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland and exhibits regularly in New Zealand and more recently in Australia. In 2019, Wright was awarded Second Runner Up at the Wallace Art Awards, and has also been a finalist in the NZ Painting and Printmaking Award (2015, 2016) and Molly Morpeth Canaday Art Award (2015).

For further information, or for a list of available works, please contact the gallery.

Gow Langsford also spoke to Grace about her practice and how she is managing in this current lockdown - you can read the full interview on their Facebook page.