Grace Hager (b. 1993, Los Angeles) is a Portland, Maine-based painter. Her work locates the natural world as a realm of possibility: a source of transformative encounters that generate awe,...
Grace Hager (b. 1993, Los Angeles) is a Portland, Maine-based painter. Her work locates the natural world as a realm of possibility: a source of transformative encounters that generate awe, positioning the magical within the observable world. For Grace, such experiences in the landscape stand out as moments where empirical, fantastical, and emotional worlds begin to intermingle. Her recent use of prismatic light and spectral, ‘rainbow’ coloring becomes a visual strategy to give form to these feelings to reinforce that life is good and contains the potential for more beauty, magic, and awe. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting with a Minor in Art History from Maine College of Art & Design. In 2021, she returned to Maine and MECA&D to pursue her Master of Fine Arts ('23). She recently adopted a parallel ceramics practice, and looks forward to continuing a dialogue between painting and ceramics, and to materializing her dreams in clay. She comes from a family of scientists which has influenced her love of the natural world and fascination with how things work. Her best ideas come to her while walking along the beach or while driving country roads.