Grace Hailstone: Falling Light

About the artist

Grace Hailstone is a UK-based artist printmaker whose practice focuses on an emotional response to landscape. Her abstract prints are informed by lived experiences of dramatic and isolated environments, particularly the otherworldly geography of Iceland. Rather than creating literal representations, she uses traditional printmaking methods to translate earthly forms and expansive skies into images that sit between reality and fiction.

Materials and the element of chance are central to her studio process. Hailstone allows the inherent unpredictability of printmaking to guide her work to its final state, creating spaces for contemplation that reflect on themes of geology and time. Her technical development was significantly shaped by a mentorship under the late Master Printmaker Stanley Jones MBE. This connection to the history of the medium continues through her role as the curator of the Curwen Archive at the Curwen Print Study Centre in Suffolk.

Hailstone’s work has been recognised by British artist Gavin Turk, who selected her piece ‘Expanse’ as a highlight of the 2022 Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair. A former Grand Prize winner of the Art Hub Print Open, she has completed residencies at Skagaströnd in Iceland and Old Jet in Suffolk. Her professional background includes work at the Slade School of Fine Art, Eames Fine Art, and the National Gallery.

Recently, her work has been shown at the Bankside Gallery and the Slade School of Fine Art. She holds a first-class degree in Fine Art and History of Art from the University of Plymouth and an MA from the University of London Institute in Paris.