Grace Summanen’s work pushes traditional definitions through material exploration and systematic approaches to abstraction. She works in painting, sculpture, installation, printmaking and drawing. Currently in her relief paintings, she uses folded fabric to explore texture, line and movement while blurring the division between painting and sculpture. For the fabric, she uses curtains, blankets, and scraps from other projects. Different fabrics allow for experimentation with multiple textures and paint applications. Traditionally in painting, fabric is a common still life subject; but instead of painting the illusion of the fabric, she is painting the fabric itself. This abstracts the subject matter for inspection, exploration, and transformation. She is also interested in the traditional associations with feminine crafts. Grace currently lives and works in Euclid, OH, outside of Cleveland, OH. She received her MFA in painting from Kent State University and her BFA in painting, drawing, and printmaking from Carnegie Mellon University. She has shown nationally in group exhibitions including To See Is To Have: Navigating Today’s Art Ecosystem at the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, TX; Big Idea at the Painting Center in New York City; and surface/material at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. Her work has also been featured on I Like Your Work podcast's first online exhibition, Be. Long. Ing.