Grace Weaver (b. 1989, Vermont) paints iconic, larger than life characters that tell honest stories which are in equal parts revealing and introspective. Like a psychological archive of daily activities, Weaver’s work mainly chronicles female experiences, in both the private and public realm. Communicating themes of the mundane, the melancholic and the emotional, Weaver takes that which is personal, transforming it into universally recognisable visual narratives.
Made during a residency in Marfa, Texas, Untitled (Head), shows a portrait head superimposed over a harlequined background, a layering which grants an architectural sense of structure in cornflower blue and dirtied white. Weaver coats the canvas in layers of oil paint, an additive process whereby paint is applied wet-into-wet. This application exposes both the process and gesture of her painterly practice – marks and omissions remain, rendered by the gestural swoop of a brush, and in textural spikes of paint.