About Me

Hello! So glad you made it here.

I'm Grace and I paint the underwater world. I'm an avid technical diver, wreck diver and cave diver as well as a scuba instructor.

I paint for water lovers like myself and for people who yearn for the magical escape that can be found just below the water line. 

Pursuing my passion

I left a successful career in advertising and marketing as a creative director to pursue my art full time when I had an "aha" moment of "If I don't do it now, I'll never do it and I'll regret it for the rest of my life". (Sounds dramatic - yes but that's me - I'm either 100% in or 100% out. ) I've had my own art school teaching kids to tell stories  and to learn history through art. I've also taught adults in the digital world and computer graphics at Centennial College in Toronto.

 Jumpstarted into diving by Jackfish

From a young child up until I was a teenager, I used to have a recurring dream of being underwater and swimming with a school of huge silvery blue jackfish all around me. It was like they knew me. I had this dream over and over but as an adult it suddenly stopped. I had forgotten all about this until I went back to the Philippines for the first time as an adult and saw a group of jackfish swirling around in shallow water beside our boat in Palawan. It all came flooding back to me and funny enough - that's the trip where I did my first scuba dive. It was as if my subconscious reminded me at a time when I was most open to it, that I was a creature of the water. I was hooked after that discover scuba diving session and when I came home, I got my certification and haven't stopped diving since.

My process

My Inspiration

I'm fascinated by the transformative power of water - how it changes and absorbs light as it moves through, how it  shapes rocks and geology as it passes over it and by how whole environments will change over time as mother nature reclaims it. It's so powerful.

10 Random Facts About Me

1. I've spent a month teaching in a small village in Tanzania and slept under the stars during a safari and climbing Mount Kilimanjaro while I was there.

2. I could eat ice cream every single day of my life and my favourite flavour is pistachio.

3. I've swam with one light in hand, in a little known cenote in Mexico where there are still the skeletal remains of the Mayan human sacrifices if you dive down to the bottom of the pit.

4. I have an adorable fur baby named Joey who is a two year old German Shepherd that I love with all my heart.

5. I'm fairly certain that while on a cave dive in the Dominican Republic, a water spirit touched my leg, gave me warning to GO NO FARTHER and turn back about 4900 feet into the cave.

6. When I was younger, I used to pretend I was a sassy girl named Sasha whenever I was nervous about something, to help me get through it.

7. Chocolates and pastries are my kryptonite.

8. I have a primordial fear of snakes. And Zombies.

9. I love to go hiking along with Joey (but am very wary of said snakes).

10. I'm a huge fantasy and sci-fi nut. Tolkien and trekkie - "All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us" so "Live Long and Prosper"!

Thank you for reading this far!