Art on a Postcard for War Child UK

About 

Grace Tobin (b.1993, London) currently lives and works in London. Having grown up in New York City, she completed her BA in fine art from Oberlin College, in Ohio. She recently graduated from the Royal College of Art (2022). She has exhibited internationally, including the US, Italy, and China. Most recently she has shown works with Court Tree Collective in New York City, as well as Canopy Collections and Rhodes Contemporary Art in London. 

In 2016 Grace earned her BA in Visual Art from Oberlin College, Ohio, USA. In 2022 she completed her MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art, London, UK. 

Select Exhibitions/Awards 

Select Exhibitions 

2022  

– Canopy Collections, All the Lives We Ever Lived, London, UK 

– Rhodes Contemporary Art, select works, London UK 

– Blink, Room Share 3, London, UK 

– Court Tree Collective, Summer Lounge, Brooklyn, NY 

– Plain Gallery, As It Turns Out, Milan, IT 

– Royal College of Art, Degree Show, London, UK 

– Royal Society of British Artists, RBA Rising Stars, London, UK 

– Zberro Gallery, What’s Your Dream, Paris, FR 

2021 

–  The Holy Art, Transitions, London, UK 

–  RCA Collective, Naturisms, London, UK 

– All Mouth Gallery, Small Pleasures, London, UK 

– London Paint Club, Contemporary Narrative, London, UK 

–  Royal College of Art, Work in Progress Show, London, UK 

2019 

– Bushwick Open Studios, Eye of the Beholder, NY, USA 

Awards 

2022  

– RBA Rome Scholarship Semi-Finalist 

2012 

– John Frederick Oberlin Merit Scholarship 

Gallery Representation 

Select works currently available through Canopy Collections and Rhodes Contemporary Art. 

Statement about AOAP Submitted Artwork   

Grace Tobin explores our relationships to the environments we inhabit, considering how these connections impact our sense of self. The constant flux of growing up between two countries impressed upon Tobin how certain spaces can hold powerful feelings of community and kinship. Her practice circles around the idea of how spaces hold personal narrative, documenting the physical and psychological impact such environments have in informing our identity. 

Tobin challenges our sense of space through subtracting material and softening edges, presenting a segmented reality, a blurred memory. She depicts scenes with only a suggestion or completely void of the human figure. Seemingly occupied with only a ghostly presence of someone just outside of the frame, Tobin’s work instead focuses our attention on the spaces and objects left behind, providing glimpses into who may have been there, and what stories the place may hold. 

Her work reflects on how physical objects can build and hold emotional value, over time embodying histories and identity. By reconstructing intimate domestic environments from her own history and memory, she considers this human instinct of creating semiotic value, or creating meaning, from our surroundings. 

The hazy dreamlike colour palette of Tobin’s paintings, paired with the use of pattern, mirrors the themes of imperfection and repetition in our lives and routines. The saturated tinted hues of her works resemble the distorted lenses through which we recall. Grace Tobin’s work exhibits the speculative, contemplative moments in which we are formed, informed, and reminded by our surroundings over time. 

You must not reproduce, duplicate, copy, sell, resell or exploit any works. In doing so, you endanger our relationships with artists, and directly jeopardise the charitable work we do. Anyone found doing so will be subject to legal action.