Grace Gimpel is a lifelong artist and soon-to-be art therapist from Joliet, Illinois. She earned a Bachelor of the Arts from Columbia College Chicago in Musical Theater in 2012 and spent ten years navigating the Chicago storefront theater scene as a performer, director, and founding member of Otherworld Theatre Company. Depleted by only engaging with art in the hours around working as a receptionist, she found a new path that honored her values of creating art and helping others. She is set to graduate with a Masters in Art Therapy and Counseling from SAIC in 2024. She interns at Chicago Art Therapy and Counseling and is dedicated to a healing justice approach which weaves activism into her counseling. Her work acknowledges that mental wellness is unattainable without dismantling systems of oppression and exploitation. Grace is a potter, performer, photographer, and multimedia artist.
I approach my artwork as a way to appreciate living and identify purpose. Led by whatever feels interesting and engaging, my work winds a path through many different disciplines and materials. Photography is one of the major pillars of that practice. I use it to pay attention to the little pleasures that make up a life well lived. I focus mostly on natural beauty, perfectly timed miracles of lighting, and vibrant color. A romantic at heart, I want to draw attention to the masterpieces around me and heighten their emotional impact.
I use 120mm film on my plastic Holga camera to produce dreamy, soft, and emotional images that reflect how it feels to recognize a moment as one worth living for. I draw influences from street photographers like Vivian Maier, whose work helped me understand how to see a moment worth photographing in everyday life. Existentialism is another strong influence on my work, as the philosophy of Viktor Frankl showed me how to find purpose in my life through art. One of my favorite photographs, “We Just Got Married…” exemplifies the spirit of my work. I took a double exposure of a full frame of flowers over a photo of my new husband as a celebration in color and sunlight of all that it means to me to be alive and in love.
In the end, my photography will show what I appreciated witnessing during my time on the planet. It will sing a love song to the splendor of nature and the human experience. My work as an art therapist will help guide others to define their purpose through the inspiration of living and creating.
When we rode our bikes to the Bahai Temple and the river was turquoise and jade., 2023. 120mm inject print.
The birch trees in the mountain were beautiful., 2023. 120mm inject print.
We just got married and spent our honeymoon sinking into the greens and blues., 2023. 120mm inject print.
I tried to catch the sun in a nest of trees on Oxbow Lagoon., 2023. 120mm inject print.
We got snowed in and the forest was magic., 2023. 120mm inject print.