Cultivating spaces for extraordinary artists

Grace Currie

Grace Currie at work. She holds a charcoal pencil in her hand and looks downwards as she works. She wears her dark hair tied back and a dark blue work short, covered in paint. Behind her are her large pieces of paper on the wall, with ideas and workings.

About the Artist

A catastrophic accident in 2010 resulted in a severe brain injury which has left me with interrelating disabilities and my own unique and neurodivergent view of the world. I share this view through my practice, working in the medium of paint, clay, video, and performance.

In 2020 I graduated with a 1st class honours degree from Chester University. For my degree show, entitled ‘the identity series ‘I wanted to show my identity as splintered and evolving, my struggle to resist the imposed single identity ‘disabled’ and the disorientating sense of fractured self the situation of 24/7 care engenders. The large-scale figures whilst humorous expressed the powerlessness and frustration of feeling reduced or ignored.

A dynamic painted image of a person. The mouth is blacked out. It could be screaming or it could be erased.

'Silenced' by Grace Currie

My social identity - as a disabled woman, reduces me in some people's eyes to child status...an identity I resist but I try to draw attention to in my childlike portraits of figures or faces. By paring down my portraits and self-portraits into simple shapes I want to show how people's complex identity gets simplified, and to set up a tension in the viewer between the childlike form and the adult themes.

In 2022 I was one of 31 Deaf, Disabled and Neurodivergent artists to take part in the DASH award winning project: We Are Invisible We Are Visible (WAIWAV) - a national event in recognition of the 102nd anniversary of the first DaDa International Exhibition of surreal and strange artworks.

The artists involved disrupted 30 museums and galleries nationwide with surreal interventions.I performed my piece Put Away Neatly at HOME Gallery in Manchester. This piece explored the repeated words and phrases that can be uttered by the people who have our best interests at heart, but which often have the culminative impact of keeping us safe, tidy, and silent.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Read More.

Visit the Project website waivav.org

Visit the DASH Project page

I am currently submitting to local and national open calls and working towards a solo exhibition in 2024.

Website gracecurrie.art/

Instagram @GraceCurrieArt

Two women in black with white tabards wrap Grace in cardboard, paper packaging and tape. They are stodd in a large room with a wooden floor with a large blue canopy hanging from the ceiling in the background.

Image: Put Away Neatly by Grace Currie. WAIWAV 2 July 2022