Biography:
 

Studies:

-The Pratt Institute in New York
-The Art Student’s League.
-With Victor D’Amico former Dir. MOMA School
-With Chaim Gross
-With  Bruno Lucchesi.

General information:

Registered Art Therapist, is listed in Who’s Who of American Women.
Co-chair of the AATA Annual Conference in Los  Angeles.
Co-editor of the AATA Annual Proceedings Publication.
Ad-hoc Chair of the Special Appeals Study Committee  for the AATA Board

Statement:

In my work I find that I utilize different media to describe and explore both my own private world and the real world as I see it. My early oil and acrylic paintings depict nature in all seasons; a nature that is both realistic and intensely personalized. These paintings have been described as “improvisations on nature” and “color poems” by Milton Fox, Editor of the Library of Great Paintings.
    While my paintings are a reflection of the serenity and order that I long for, my sculptures and pastels are commentaries, both social and political, of the realities of today’s world. The portraits mirror my feelings towards my subjects. They are attempts to catch and to hold for a moment the inner heart and soul. I do not seek to paint an exact replica, but rather to capture the real self underlying the poses. I am more interested in the viewer  recognizing what these people are, than who they are.
    My sculptures are about life and people - about motion and relationships. They are social commentaries of a chaotic and ever changing world; a sometime world of “hippies” and “yuppies”, a world filled with both life’s exuberance and life’s despair.

Exhibitions
 

-The Museum of the University of Georgia in a "one  woman show"
-The Norval Gallery, Madison Avenue, New York City
-The Pietrantonio Gallery, Madison Avenue (One woman show)
-The Larcada Gallery, Madison Avenue (Sculptures)
-The Monede Gallery, Madison Avenue (Paintings)The Gallerie Moos, Montreal, Canada (Paintings)
-Artists Showplace, Lake Worth, Florida
-Reef Park, Boca Raton, Florida
-Open Juried Art Show sponsored by Saks, Boca Raton, Florida
-Open Juried show at The Courtyard, Boca Raton, Florida


Permanent Collections:

-Museum of the University of Georgia
-The Jewish Museum, New York City
-The Rose Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, Mass
 

Private collections:

-Mr. and Mrs. Danny Kay
-Mr. & Mrs. Max Liebman
-Mr. and Mrs. Harold Uris
-Mr. and Mrs. Sam Stayman,
-Mr. and Mrs. Darwin Dornbush
 and many others.

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Grace Forrest is a multi-talented, multi faceted artist, a master worker in clay, oils and acrylic, water color and pastels.

Sculptures: One word description: Motion.
Forrest’s imaginative sculptures depict ordinary moments in time captured forever in bronze - a woman sorting laundry, or holding a child’s hand as they walk through the park, a reclining woman calling out to her lover to return, two young “Pepsi Generation” dancers. A model seated on a high stool seems ready at any moment to push off, a man is lost in thought before rising to confront what lies ahead. Forrest’s ability to freeze the action - or the temporary inaction- of the moment is astonishing. Her pieces do not simply rest on a table or shelf. You find your eyes keep coming back to them again and again, each time seeing more then the time before.

Acrylics and Oils: One word description: Color.
Forrest’s work ranges from heavy, swift brush strokes of brilliant color in a still life canvas of fruit or flowers, to imaginative, almost impressionistic landscapes using a multi-colored palette. Forrest is not interested in detail. She goes for the emotive quality of the scene, drawing  you in with her brash colors or broad scenes.

Watercolors: one word description: Evocative.
These tiny jewels - most are only about 8” by 5”, range in subject matter from a street in Venice, to a palm fringed beach in Florida. Done swiftly with quick impressionistic strokes, some seem to capture even the breeze as kites soar and flags fly and children frolic in the waves. Others are quieter and capture the beauty of an old world street, or a harbor view of a small Italian town. Beautifully framed and arranged on the wall, these little gems could take you around the world and back.

Pastels: one word description: Piercing. 
Strictly speaking, neither portrait nor caricature call them characatraits or portraitures, these wondrous likenesses seek the essence of the person pictured. Whether it be O.J. Simpson or Saddam Hussein, Bill Clinton sharing space with George Bush the elder, or Hillary Clinton. or Pat Buchanan, these “portraitures” will elicit a smile of recognition. They chronicle some of the most turbulent historical figures of our time, reminding one - in their choice of subject - of the early American itinerant painters who wandered the country seeking commissions from important figures, and leaving us a valuable historical record of the age in which they worked.

Milton Fox, Editor, The Library of Great Painters, review of the paintings of Grace Forrest in full.

         “In our day, with its conflicting attitudes toward art, it is too much to expect a sensitive and developing artist to confine him or herself to one approach. If our critical and aesthetic standards are in a state of chaos, it may be that for this very reason we are privileged to see more kinds of artistic inspiration, artistic vision, than ever before. I not know whether this is good or bad. But it is obvious that contemporary artists’ expression is highly personal, to a degree that is refreshing, tantalizing, and very exciting. It is full of surprises, sudden shifts and changes, new ways of saying old things, improvisation and invention.

         For the individual artist, however, it is very dangerous to be various, for he may easily lose artistic identity in randomness. It is far more easy for the painter to take refuge in some small and comfortable vision, limiting himself in motif and method. But it takes courage and strength of artistic personality to play with a theme, coming at it from many different sides, finding the best or most suitable means to embody each new approach.

        Grace Forrest attempts this. Identity is present in these works, and so is variety, Her theme, in general, is nature-close up or far away, nature in various parts of the world, in season and out. But her real subject matter is better described as improvisation on nature, since she does not hamper herself with mere optical vision. Sometimes she borders on completely abstract interpretation; sometimes it is what might be called a “color poem” (as musicians have their “tone poems”); sometimes the touch is delicate, almost diffident, and at other times it virtually assaults the canvas; sometimes the color is dark and mysterious, and sometimes it is limpid and singing. There are many voices in this work, but they are all Grace (Forrest’s).”

In writing of her sculpture, the same critic remarks:

     “In her sculpture, Grace Forrest looks at life about and sees people, people in motion and people in relationship to one another. Many times (they mirror) the contemporary; the hippie mother with her baby strapped to her back and two kids of the “Pepsi Generation.” Others look less at the far-out and more at the mainstream of our times but through it all, the main thrust is movement and reality, and a searching for perspective on life by coming at it from many sides, finding the best or most suitable means to embody each new approach. Most of all it is an artist expressing thought and meaning.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

E-mail:    grace.forrest@gmail.com

Phone:   561 547-0698, (10 am- 5pm est)