DRAWINGS: The built environment

Grace has always been drawn to buildings and places in a state of flux. Her work is partly informed by places she's visited in the course of her work as a conservator, as well as places encountered through travel. Alongside familiar locations such as the British Museum in London, and the Coliseum in Rome, Grace has used her drawings to explore more unusual locations such as a derelict building in East Kent that housed military prisoners in World War One. It is now little more than a cow-shed, but the prison cells, complete with graffiti of the Great War, still exist. In 2004, she was the only artist allowed on site after a fire devastated Ramsgate Library. She was able to document the destruction, capturing the the interior of the building, exposed to the elements and daylight, and cut by distorted shapes and exposed girders, creating a series of drawings that picked out the remaining details and striking light patterns in the building’s shell.