bio (LINK TO CV)
Grace McIntyre-Willis is an interdisciplinary artist and currently a 2025 MFA candidate and Graduate instructor for digital arts in the MFA Digital Arts program at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. In addition to their courseload, they helped create and manage a collaborative Digital Ceramics lab created by the School of Architecture and the Newcomb Art department. Grace is originally from a small rural town outside of Pensacola, Florida where they grew up enjoying both farm and beach life. Their practice utilizes 3D ceramic printing, biological systems, and 2D design to explore morphology, existentialism, and non-human intelligence in the form of sculptural, photographical, and illustrative works. Calling upon the visual references of organic form, they hope the works they create will encourage the viewer to point inquiries back at our existence and three-dimensional space.
While earning their BFA at the University of West Florida, Grace was invited to the Florida Undergraduate Research Association annual conference at Florida’s state capital as the only presenting artist among 40 students across the state. During the conference, they presented their research titled, “Exploring the Art of Composed Aquatic Ecosystems” to Florida’s state legislators. This research investigated the possibility that the visual aspects of aquascapes could improve the level of public engagement in creating positive environmental change.
Grace has shown at several venues throughout their early artistic career, such as the Pensacola Museum of Art, Art Bug in Los Angeles, and Good Children in New Orleans. Although, their artistic goals remain more geared towards research, and working in the field. Most recently, Grace was funded to visit a remote ecological research station in the Chocò rainforests of northwestern Ecuador, where they worked closely with biologists to create 3D photogrammetry models of botanical specimens to be placed in an open-access digital library. These models will be utilized in their thesis exhibition in 2025 in ceramic form. As an artist working with a variety of media, Grace seeks opportunities to work alongside other disciplines to enrich both artistic and scientific research. In May of 2024, Grace was awarded the Bywater Institute’s Scholarly Retreat residency by A Studio in the Woods. During this residency, Grace will be working with ecologists to discuss the development and installation of ceramic sculptures that can be symbiotic with the surrounding forests. In the future, Grace plans to continue advocating for interdisciplinary collaboration between the arts and the sciences through community engagement and research. Through the conjunction of these disciplines, they believe that there are ways of retaining knowledge that has been somewhat unexplored in the academic setting.
