Grace M. Refuerzo:  A self taught artist, photographer and native Northern Californian. Born from Filipino Immigrants.  After graduating from high school, I received my license in hairstyling. Creating hairstyles that shaped and framed clients faces and surprising clients with unique hairstyles and hair colors was a fulfilling career. After retiring from hairstyling, I went back to school and worked for many years in the technology software field. Missing a creative outlet in work I started a landscape design company. This certainly was one of my favorite businesses. To create a landscape design for clients was not only fun, it was a different form of art. After 15 years of landscape design, I retired to focus full-time on art. My work draws inspiration from architecture, nature, landscapes, and intuitive exploration. I work with a range of mixed media, including acrylic, encaustic, oil, and plaster. Most pieces begin as sketches, either by hand or digitally, before being transferred to canvas.
I am especially drawn to painting on wood, where the surface allows the paint to move in distinctive ways, particularly in geometric and abstract compositions.
My practice is rooted in abstraction, with an emphasis on dynamic yet balanced compositions that exist between structure and dissolution. Textured surfaces are explored in ways that float and blur, creating shallow spaces where soft, ethereal tones emerge against darker, grounding elements. These contrasts create a sense of suspension—present yet elusive.
Process remains central to the work. Materials are approached intuitively, allowing the surface to guide each piece. Layers are sometimes scraped back to reveal what lies beneath, while at other times they are built up gradually, embracing density and resistance. This interplay between subtraction and accumulation reflects an ongoing exploration of control and spontaneity, clarity and obscurity.
Through texture, muted luminosity, and shifting spatial relationships, the work offers a space for quiet contemplation, where atmosphere takes precedence over fixed narrative.

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