Grace Kennison, represented by Visions West Contemporary, explores the American West through a female lens, challenging narratives with dreamlike paintings examining land and identity.
Grace Kennison fearlessly delves into the complexities of the American West through the unique lens of a female perspective. Working from her studio in the rugged San Juan Mountains of Colorado, Kennison’s work explores the intricate relationships between land, animals, self, and iconography within both the real and imagined West. Her paintings offer a contemporary and critical perspective, challenging traditional narratives and shedding light on the region’s layered history and its impact on individuals and society.
Kennison’s work is deeply rooted in storytelling, weaving themes of resistance, performances of freedom, and the notion of settler memory—an idea from Indigenous Studies that settler societies turn the living present into an imagined past, into a ghost. She also confronts women’s complicated history in the West. The result is a body of work that is surreal, dreamlike, and unsettling; a space where history and mythology intersect. By incorporating motifs of fantasy and apparition, her paintings challenge the glorified images of the West often perpetuated in popular culture. She constructs a world that acknowledges both the reality and the myths of the frontier, exploring how these narratives continue to shape contemporary understandings of place and identity.
Recently, Kennison’s work was featured in the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver’s acclaimed exhibition Cowboy, which is currently on view at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas. This inclusion highlights her growing recognition in the contemporary art scene and her ability to engage with broader conversations about the American West in both historical and modern contexts.
Kennison’s work is available at Visions West Contemporary.
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