Gracianne Kirsch

Instagram: @graciannekirsch

Website: http://graciannekirsch.com

Bio: Gracianne Kirsch is an Oakland-based interdisciplinary queer and trans artist, working in the mediums of video, poetry, painting, and drawing. Kirsch investigates memory through queer temporalities and non-linear ways of knowing. Kirsch's work finds emphasis in depicting domestic objects and trans bodies. Kirsch was born in 2000 in Redwood Valley, California and grew up in a rural, off-grid homestead. Kirsch received their MFA in Art Studio at University of California Davis in 2024. They received their BA with a double major in Art Practice and Social Welfare at University of California Berkeley. Kirsch's work has been shown at the Manetti Shrem Museum, Pence Gallery, and UC Davis' Basement Gallery, and Worth Ryder Gallery. Kirsch is currently a participant of the Queer Ancestor's Project in San Francisco. Kirsch received the UC Davis inaugural Letters & Science Award for Excellence, the Fay Nelson Award from the department of Art and Art History at UC Davis, the Theresa Hak Kyung Cha Award from BAMPFA for visual art. Kirsch was included twice in the Davis Film Festival and received a Jury Citation Award for their short film “play pretend feelings.”

Statement: I explore memory and presence through a blend of drawing, mixed media, poetry, and video. My work operates through queer temporalities, embracing a nonlinear understanding of time. I draw on recollections of the body, objects, and spaces, working toward creating a trans-dimensional exploration of memory and identity. So much of my work happens while viewing photos of cluttered spaces. Objects reveal moments of love in their wear, and of hurt in their neglect or discarding. The figures in my art are often restrained by gravity, stretching down, slouching, or laying in bed. There is some posturing in these moments of candor, often the figures look straight to the audience or are posed in effeminate ways. The figures are at a heavy rest, holding their own weight, holding the burden of memory, holding the force of trans selfhood. The videos are a scattered collection of interactions, weaving video into drawing. They capture performance and play in a disparate and curious exploration of the body’s emotional relationship to object and space.