Art at Grace Farms is integral to the vision of creating a place where architecture, nature, and community converge. Since 2015, Grace Farms has welcomed site-responsive works by internationally renowned artists whose practices reflect questions of time, perception, and our shared humanity. These permanent and commissioned works invite reflection, spark dialogue, and deepen the experience of SANAA’s architecture and the surrounding landscape.
Permanent Collection
Alicja Kwade
ParaPosition, 2025
Location: Walking Trails (near the Sanctuary)
Sculpture
ParaPosition’s array of steel and stone draws viewers into the frame of this massive, yet fragile, universe. The substantial stones, with their immense weight, appear to defy gravity in an almost weightless balancing act. The chair beckons viewers to reflect on our relationship with the world and contemplate the fundamental nature of our existence.
Acquired by Grace Farms, 2025; curated by Chelsea Thatcher.
James Florio
Haida Gwaii, 2025
Location: Library
5×7 film
Standing in the ancient cedar forests of Haida Gwaii, the ancestral territory of the Haida Nation in British Colombia, Canada, is an experience that brings forth a profound sense of time and place. It is an incredible honor to have the privilege of walking among these giants.
If all things are inherently connected, this is a place that reinforces that idea on every level. I hope that this view of the forest draws you in, encouraging a moment of pause, of looking more closely, of reflecting on our own connection to the world around us.
If you look out the window, you can see the beautiful cedar fascia of the Grace Farms River building winding its way up the hill. The Haida people have loved and respected these trees since time immemorial, and these caretakers have worked to maintain the highest standards of responsible forestry; without this stewardship, neither the fascia nor the forest in this image would exist.
Commissioned by Grace Farms, 2025; curated by Chelsea Thatcher.
Teresita Fernández
Double Glass River, 2015
Location: Commons
Silvered cubes
1859 x 130 x 2 cm
Created in dialogue with SANAA’s architecture, Fernández’s installation layers hundreds of glass panels to evoke a shimmering riverbed. The work reflects the fluid relationship between light, landscape, and architecture that defines Grace Farms.
Commissioned by Grace Farms, 2015; curated by Yuko Hasegawa.
Beatriz Milhazes
Moon Love Dreaming, 2016
Location: West Barn
108-foot wall mural
Brazilian artist Milhazes blends geometric abstraction with floral motifs in this vibrant composition. Installed in the West Barn, the work invites a sense of rhythm and joy within the light-filled architecture.
Commissioned by Grace Farms, realized in 2016; curated by Yuko Hasegawa.
Thomas Demand
Farm 56, 2015
Location: Library
Framed Pigment Print
167.5 x 223 cm
This large-scale photographic work shows iterations of SANAA’s architectural models for Grace Farms arranged into abundant, layered compositions. The works convey the focus of the designers during the process of concept to realization, the multiple possibilities of design, and the role of the model as a communication tool in the SANAA studio.
Commissioned by Grace Farms, 2015; curated by Yuko Hasegawa.
Olafur Eliasson
Mat for multidimensional prayers, 2014
Location: Sanctuary
Grey wool
75 x 122 x 5.5 cm
Eliasson’s handwoven mats create a tactile field of color and pattern. Their placement within Grace Farms facilitates a moment of connection to the beauty within the natural world, to the origins of materials. Woven from the untreated wool of Icelandic grey sheep, Mat for multidimensional prayers is one of only a handful of Olafur Eliasson’s works in textile.
Acquired by Grace Farms Foundation, 2015; curated by Yuko Hasegawa.
More Works on View
Hannah Rose Thomas
Nasreen, 2025
Location: on view in the With Every Fiber exhibit
Egg tempera/oil on MDF panel
5’8″h x 4’w
Nasreen is a portrait painting of Nasreen Sheikh, modern slavery survivor, human rights activist, artist, and Founder of The Empowerment Collective by Hannah Rose Thomas, PhD. Nasreen was created using egg tempera paint mixed from natural pigments — a technique traditionally used for religious art. Thomas’s use of iconography and early Renaissance painting techniques and gold leaf for portrait paintings is symbolic of the restoration of dignity and the sacred value of each individual.
Commissioned by Grace Farms, 2025 for the With Every Fiber exhibit; curated by Chelsea Thatcher.
Studio Cooke John
Material Clarity, 2025
Location: on view in the With Every Fiber exhibit
Nina Cooke John’s installation explores the meanings of found materials, compiled and layered through the art of collage. The value of glass is primarily its transparency, and Cooke John is using it to root her process, with dense layering of strips of reused glass that graduate to areas of sparing use. Various types of glass and textures — clear, patterned, ribbed, stippled — give a new way of looking at glass as a product, prompting questions about how the construction industry is designing and sourcing this material.
The contrast between rigid cut glass and the painted branch invites viewers to consider the physical and symbolic roles of glass in connecting us to nature while shaping our built environments. The ability to visually see the branch depends on how many layers of glass one needs to look through.
By incorporating recognizable historic glass windows and door frames, the work grounds itself in the lived spaces of daily life while raising awareness about forced labor and child labor in the global glass and sand industries.
Cooke John Sourced the salvaged materials in their framing from a local salvage yard that is part of Habitat for Humanity ReStores, which accepts donations and resells reusable building materials.
Commissioned by Grace Farms, 2025 for the With Every Fiber exhibit; curated by Chelsea Thatcher.
Webb Yates
Stone Space Frame, 2025
Location: on view in the With Every Fiber exhibit
Reclaimed stone, Jodhpur Sandstone, Angolan Stone and Vietnamese Stone
Natural stone, quarried, processed, transported and reused under the right conditions, can be a highly sustainable material.
“As we strive to decarbonize, we must search for lower energy alternatives to these common building materials. Stone is often overlooked as a solution. Low carbon, high strength, durable, fireproof stone is available right under our feet in unimaginable quantities,” said Steve Webb.
Steve Webb, who has been developing sustainable engineering solutions in the building industry for decades, argues that architecture today is at a “low ebb” and that “building designers and makers need to propel architecture into a new phase, caring for the environment but intrepid in scale and expression.”
The Stone Space Frame pylon shows how post-tensioned stone (where a fine steel tendon holds the stone in compression) might replace steel as a trussing component. Each individual stone bar is formed with a series of stone cylinders with a thin steel tie rod in the middle. This technology reduces the steel and carbon used by 75% and can be used for many applications such as bridges, roofs, factory, stadiums, and buildings.
Acquired by Grace Farms, 2025; curated by Chelsea Thatcher.
John Sabraw
Lithologic, 2025
Location: on view in the With Every Fiber exhibit
Acrylic, iron oxide pigments from acid mine drainage, Appalachian coal, mixed media and other artists colors on stretched canvas
“The sense of movement throughout my artwork reflects my struggle to transcend the strife of contemporary daily life and enter a state of acceptance and release as I become one with the ebb and flow of the spiritual and physical forces of the universe, a state I often experience in nature and carry over into my studio. Rooted in the depths of personal experience and nurtured by a relentless pursuit of understanding, they serve as portals to realms unseen, inviting viewers to embark on a journey of introspection and revelation.
Through the painting Lithologic, I am unearthing the topographies created from our extraction of natural resources and exploring their paradox. For they are at once wondrous feats of human ingenuity and engineering, yet also emblematic of our consumption and hubris. These extractive topographies form a hidden network most people have no idea exists, yet each of us has a part in its formation. Often the only visible evidence is pollution in our waterways. Fascinating in their design and compelling in their geography – by drawing and painting interpretations of them I am seeking an understanding of humanity itself.
This painting utilizes raw materials and pigments from pollutants. There is a terrible beauty in the resulting artwork that balances the delicate with the brutal. But in the end, hope is at the core of my artwork and practice as my environmental efforts reflect our ability to overcome current crises and make a better future.”
– John Sabraw
Acquired by Grace Farms, 2025; curated by Chelsea Thatcher.
Hillary Water Fayle
Portraits of Place, 2022
Location: East Barn
Botanical cyanotype on paper
This site-specific work captures the dynamic interplay between Grace Farms’ natural and built environments. Using plant materials from the site, Fayle creates cyanotype “portraits” that evoke both memory and the living landscape.
Commissioned by Grace Farms, 2022; curated by Chelsea Thatcher.
Stewarded Works
Marissa Purcell
Toward the Way II, 2024
Acrylic on raw Italian linen
Australian artist Marissa Purcell created Toward the Way II with a deep sensitivity to materials, stretching her own canvases and intentionally selecting Italian linen to remain visible within the composition. The painting is inspired by music, which Purcell describes as “the most abstract of all art forms … a space of liberation, surprise, and potential.” Rendered in Grace Farms’ signature yellow, the work radiates warmth, connection, and contemplative intensity, aligning with the Foundation’s mission. Toward the Way II is part of Grace Farms’ collection but located in a private area.
Acquired by Grace Farms from Arden + White, New Canaan, 2025; curated by Chelsea Thatcher.
Girl with Flowers
Sculpture
A poignant figurative sculpture, Girl with Flowers is part of Grace Farms’ collection but located in a private area.
Acquired by Grace Farms.
Alyson Shotz
Temporal Shift, 2021
Mirror polish stainless steel
14’ (h) x 8.8’ (w) x 1.5” (d)
Created as part of Grace Farms’ interdisciplinary study of time, Temporal Shift takes the form of an ellipse, evoking the annual orbit of our planet and the warping of space-time. Installed in the River building’s interior courtyard, the sculpture interacted with sunlight throughout the day and across the seasons, animating the space like an abstract sundial. Through minimal materials and form, Shotz offers a meditation on our place in the cosmos.
Commissioned by Grace Farms.
Julianne Swartz
Joy, still., 2018
Sound installation; multi-sensory
In this immersive work, Swartz activated three distinct acoustic environments within the SANAA River building—an ethereal 16-channel composition in the Sanctuary plenum, hand-carved “Transfer Objects” in the Library that transmitted poems through multisensory means, and a four-channel poetic soundscape in the resonant Corridor. Together, these elements wove a semi-narrative exploration of joy through sound, architecture, and contemplation.
Commissioned by Grace Farms, 2018.
Kysa Johnson
Landscape Continuum, 2016
Contemporary artist Kysa Johnson’s Landscape Continuum offered an evolutionary meditation on the environment of New Canaan, spanning from 13,000 years in the past to 2,000 years into the future. Layering scientific imagery with painterly abstraction, Johnson considered the cycles of change that shape place and time, inviting viewers to reflect on the interconnectedness of history, ecology, and possibility.
Commissioned by Grace Farms, 2016.
Susan Philipsz
New Canaan, 2015-2017
Three-channel sound installation
Duration: 2:05
Installed in the landscape for Grace Farms’ opening, Philipsz’s sound work enveloped visitors in an aural meditation on memory and place. No longer on view, it remains part of Grace Farms’ early history of site-responsive art.
Commissioned by Grace Farms, 2015; curated by Yuko Hasegawa. This artwork is part of our Permanent Collection but not currently on view.
