Grace Sanford Self-Portrait
2025 Senior Exhibition Artists 2025 Senior Exhibition Artists: Grace Sanford
Grace Sanford

Art + Design: Illustration

½ûÂþÌìÌà Grace Sanford

Grace Sanford is a Massachusetts-based visual artist and illustrator. Her artwork often explores the female figure and elements of nature in surrealistic ways. She strives to portray visions of freedom, acceptance and self-love, transformation and growth, as well as an inescapable connection with nature. She particularly likes to explore these subjects through traditional art forms such as acrylic painting and drawing with pen and ink.

Statement

In this series of music posters, most of which I created with traditional media, my goal was to capture an essence of the music that would be familiar to other fans, while still freely expressing my own unique, intuitive interpretation of the music. I paid a lot of attention to the specific qualities of the sounds, as well as memories of experiences that I have had while seeing these musicians. The creative process for this series was a very enjoyable merging of visual and auditory art. A lot of the music that I listen to tends to feel quite wobbly and wavy and mystical, which comes out in my artwork. I find this type of music to be the most fun to pair with art making.

I made many of the posters in this series for specific concerts and events that I attended myself, where I have been able to share the artwork with like-minded people. As a person who can be more on the introverted side at times, sharing my art after the shows has been a really special way for me to dive a bit deeper into the music scene. It has pushed me to talk to people that I might not normally talk to, many of which are so kind and genuine. I am immensely grateful for these experiences, and plan to continue making this kind of art and sharing it at music events.