​Drawing in the expanded field; abstraction through repetition is an unconventional drawing workshop that will creatively and analytically explore using repetition as a process to free words from their conventional meaning. 

WHEN: Tuesday 7 October, 1-3PM
WHERE: Arts Lab, Level 1, Building 159 (next to the George Paton Gallery

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Informed by her own lived experience of repeating words as a result of having Tourette’s Syndrome, artist Grace Culley will invite participants to experience the embodied process of repeating a word to the point that the original function of the word becomes diffused. She will guide participants through a process-based method of turning a written phrase into a stamp that will then be used to transform the written phrase into an abstract artwork on paper. Participants will be offered to take their stamps home and continually use it as a form of long term endurance art. 

Grace Culley is a visual artist who works across the mediums of drawing, sculpture and painting. She investigates the various roles repetition plays in contexts like trying to understand oneself and the surrounding environment. Her works are made through labour-intensive processes, emphasising how repetition can intensify sensations such as pleasure, escapism, discipline and damnation. 

Based on freeform research that favours looking at connections between a broad range of ideas, Grace’s works are motivated by her excitement about relationships and patterns. She applies her research by selecting a refined group of connected ideas and, through hands-on experimentation, arrives at technical processes which can be expanded into larger groups of works.

Grace considers herself mainly to be a drawer and, as a result, her practice is characterised by skilled line work which extends beyond intricate pen drawings and into sculptures made of bent metal bands sewn together with wire, and sinuous paintings rendered in airbrush.

Grace completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts (Painting Major) at the Victorian College of the Arts in 2021 and has exhibited in numerous group and solo exhibitions across Melbourne and regional Victoria. At present, Grace is a studio artist in the Gertrude Contemporary Studio Residency Program. 

Comfortable clothing is recommended, aprons will be provided but we might get a bit messy!