Grace Perkins’ work begins with language/text as a set of intentions that often becomes obscured over time through a process of addition and redaction. Through this process of layering, Perkins creates dense canvases composed of acrylic, spray paint, enamel, plant material, collected trash, and personal ephemera that transmutes hope, grief, and feeling to something more expansive and collective alluding to people, peoples, the past, and the present.

As a queer indigenous woman, Grace uses abstraction, materiality, and ritual to replace the didacticism native artists are often requested to provide from institutions and dominant culture.

Her exhibitions often include collaborators through material such as drawings, photographs, and references, as well as exhibiting alongside Grace as seen in her first museum solo exhibition at MOCA Tucson, in which she invited black and indigenous artists-- Lonnie Holley, Fox Maxy, Olen Perkins, and Eric-Paul Riege, to be in dialogue with her paintings. Through installation, film projection, and performance, this work came together to create conversations about identity, place, and collectivity.

Most recently, Grace has completed a residency at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and has lectured at the Yale School of Art, Cooper Union, and Tulane University.

Her work has recently been acquired by SFMOMA as part of their Contemporary Painting collection and is on view through summer 2024.

She is represented by Cushion Works, San Francisco.

Source: gracerosarioperkins.com