Grace Qian

Forgotten Memories: George

Jackson’s Painting Prize 2020
Oil
Canvas
122 x 132 cm

“Through the creation of paintings, I see my work as an embodiment of connections that exist within my life. In each piece I aim to create a space where vulnerability is present without it being forced upon anyone. My process of art making was influenced by my past, questioning the idea of the self and how it plays into the world. By exploring individual experiences of isolation, vulnerability, and their interaction with each other through portraiture, I understand that this is something that connects all of us together.

Recently I turn this attention and vulnerability exclusively to subjects who play prominent roles in my life. Pictured only as their present selves, a culmination of everything that caused them, I study all that brought them to me — the fundamental qualities they share as human beings and experiences that connect them in time. Paintings featuring individuals that I am close with not only confirms my place, but its position in relation to others. The work remembers I am not alone. My practice is a recounting of the life I live in order to remember I am included within it.”