ARTIST STATEMENT
Mary Lou Grace Robison’s practice strives to express the relationship between the individual yet universal experiences of feminine discovery and trauma. By revisiting her encounters with domestic abuse, addiction and childhood trauma, Robison’s work is seen as an effort to refine her personal definition of femininity and to reflect, recontextualize, and visually represent such trauma. Her desire to push the boundaries of traditional oil painting has resulted in a dialogue between physical art making and writing, where she is able to look to the past, presenting her words as collected memories filled with nostalgia and melancholy that inform her work. Employing bright color palettes, dreamlike compositions, personal symbolism, and experimentation with mediums, Robison’s work is a constant unraveling and rebuilding of the complex emotions we may not have other ways of expressing.
BIO
Mary Lou Grace earned her bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from the University of San Francisco where she worked for the Thacher Gallery and Fine Arts Department and was awarded the Departmental and Leadership Award as well as the Mary and Carter Award. Grace was honored at Carnegie Hall for her gold key portfolio by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards in 2019. She has been featured by various publications such as The Dementia Springs Foundation for her work exploring Alzheimer’s disease, as well as The Furrow Magazine, The Ignatian Literary Magazine, AJCU Newsletter, and Being Patient. Her work has been exhibited in galleries such as The Bedford Gallery, Bass and Reiner, Gllry Garage, MRKT Gallery, SOMArts and 120710 Gallery in Berkeley California. Grace is currently a student in the Master of Fine Arts program at San Francisco State University.