Grace Herrmann
Visual Artist

Landslide fuses Grace Herrmann's expansive paper carving practice with light and installation. As a series, these artworks examine geomorphic events as allegorical symbols of lived experience. Here, major shifts, both tectonic and emotionally resonant, disrupt routine and order with unexpected consequences.

 

Grace’s practice combines techniques learned through printmaking, picture framing and oil painting, resulting in richly textured surfaces which immerse the viewer within the landscape of her work. This series marks a pivot in Grace’s practice, from inky, textured, framed works to the suspension of a bare carving in the exhibition space, expanding her practice into one which draws on a play of light and dimensionality.

 

This series draws upon the images which perpetuate throughout our virtual lives and the catastrophic natural disasters that have become our casual viewing. Grace explores these events as literal threat but also as symbolic of everyday, lived experience, from managing mental health to carefully constructing foundations for coping – a constant self-maintenance which can slide out from underneath you in unexpected moments. 

 

The practice of paper carving itself is a mindful technique. Its cathartic and rhythmic repetition of cut, peel, cut, peel keeps the hands busy and allows the mind to focus on precision. Each mark made is unique, irreversible and represents an act of letting go.