Canberra born, Grace Costa has spent the past 20-years building her career as a commercial photographer and most recently, a photo-based artist. She has built a multi-award-winning portfolio in this time. In 2014, “Portrait of Minika” secured a finalist position for Grace in the prestigious National Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. In 2020 Grace became a finalist in the Head On Photo Prize, as well as exhibited in the Head On Photo Festival in 2017.
Grace’s heart lies with contemporary portraiture where she is best known for her striking, character portraits of horses, developed from her history with horses growing up where she learnt everything from her father, a well-respected horseman in Canberra. She has turned equine art on its head and brought it into the 21st century with contemporary portraits of the horses she so carefully selects for her collections. She was unable to find stylish equine art that represented the way she saw horses so she created what she wanted from her own imagination.
Grace’s release of her first ‘Horse collection’ inspired her TEDx Canberra talk in 2017, ‘Finding your creative truth through personal story’ in 2017.
Grace has achieved multiple industry awards and featured in numerous respected Australian publications, and in 2019 launched her first ever short film (created by Tenalphas productions) based around her father’s story with horses, The Narrabundah Boy at Palace Electric in Canberra.
Grace enjoys curating small group shows, and in 2020 received the Canberra Critics Award for mentoring and curating a group show as part of a year-long ‘Concept to Exhibition’ program with PhotoAccess. Grace herself exhibits in both solo and group shows in galleries around Australia.
