Nyugen E. Smith was born in Jersey City, NJ in 1976 to a Trinidadian mother and Haitian father. He spent his formative years growing up in his mother’s homeland-a tropical, former British colony where African customs and traditions are still woven in to the cultural fabric.
In 1994 he enrolled at Seton Hall University as a Political Science major with the intention of eventually pursing a Law degree. During his time there, he became involved in the dramatic arts landing roles in the the university’s theater program as well as roles as an extra in television and film. In 1998 he earned a BA in Fine Art from Seton Hall University and began to actively participate in the art scene in downtown Jersey City which was anchored by the historic 111 1st street artist enclave. Smith has been investigating the psychological, cultural and social implications of colonialism in Africa and the West Indies using an inter-disciplinary approach working in mixed media sculpture/assemblages, performance and video art. Methods of free association, repetition, spontaneity, and improvisation governs the production of his work. He has been a visiting artist and guest panelist at Studio Museum Harlem, Pratt Institute, University of Boston-Amherst and Seton Hall University. Smith lives and works in Jersey City, NJ.

Geraldo Mercado is a multidisciplinary Brooklyn based Puerto Rican artist. He creates extreme body-based performance art, experimental video art, mobile installations, and analog and computer based images. Geraldo’s performative work explores the idea of the body as an empathetic zone. He pushes his body past it’s own physical limit, inviting the audience to reflect on themselves and their own bodies. You can expect to see large quantities of blood, sweat, and adrenaline when you attend any of his performances. In fact, he can't stop thinking about performance and would love to talk to you about it.

Geraldo has exhibited works at Grace Exhibition Space, Exit Art, Panoply Performance Laboratory, IV Soldiers, Present Company, Art In Odd Places, Lumen Festival, and The Brooklyn International Performance Art Festival among many other places.

In 2013 Geraldo was an artist-in-residence at Animamus Art Salon: A Living Gallery London, hosted by artist Ventiko at Apiary Studios in London. Here he explored the idea of running an "Experience Shop" where patrons could purchase small intimate performances for a pound each. Since 2012 Geraldo has also been the video artist-in-residence with the Buran Theatre Company who's next work will debuting at Incubator Arts in May 2014.

Faith Johnson has an MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts through Tufts University, Boston Massachusetts where she received the Rose Hill Performance Award. Johnson has shown in galleries and festivals throughout the United States and abroad. She has performed internationally at the Open Festival in China, Navinki Festival in Belarus, Tactile Bosch Gallery in Wales England, and is a member of the International Performance Association of Hildesheim, Germany. Johnson has worked as an artist in residence at the Newton School of Theology where she researched spiritual forms and gestures. Currently Johnson manages an art studio for adults with psychiatric disabilities and has recently taught performance art at the School of the Museum of Fine Art.

Johnson is interested in working with the invisible and internal as visualized and experienced through metaphor. She explores these intangible spaces by creating surreal and haunting human poetics through the re-contextualization of everyday objects, actions/interactions and places.

Thomas Albrecht lives and works in New Paltz, New York, located in the Hudson Valley just west of the North River that runs south to New York City. His artworks include wall drawings that record passages of time through accumulations of mark; paintings that negotiate the remnants of human agency without picturing actual figures; and performances on city sidewalks that explore ritual and language in public spaces.

He has exhibited at the Frye Art Museum, Elaine L. Jacob Gallery in Detroit, Yale Institute of Sacred Music, and the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York. In addition, he has initiated unscheduled interventions on sidewalks in multiple U.S. cities; his interactions with local police have been few. He is an assistant professor of art at the State University of New York at New Paltz, where he serves as coordinator for first-year studies. He has lectured on topics ranging from teaching pedagogy, ritual and performance, and contemporary visual practices in venues such as the School of Visual Arts, the College Art Association, and the International Society for Religion, Literature and Culture in Stirling, Scotland. He served as the Menil Scholar at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music and was selected as a Faculty Fellow for the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities. He received his BFA from Rhode Island School of Design, a Master of Arts in Religion at Yale, and his MFA from the University of Washington in Seattle.

Grace Exhibition Space opened in 2006 and is devoted exclusively to Performance Art. We offer an opportunity to experience visceral and challenging performance works by the current generation of international performance artists, whether emerging, mid career or established. Being a Brooklyn loft, our events are presented on the floor, not on a stage, dissolving the boundary between artist and viewer.

Grace Exhibition Space is run by Jill & Erik with Vincent Tiley. Jamie is our bartender and Leah runs the door.

Please also support PANOPLY PERFORMANCE LAB [Brooklyn] GLASSHOUSE GALLERY [Brooklyn], MOBIUS [Boston] DFBRL8R GALLERY [Chicago] and EAMES ARMSTRONG [Washington, DC] - when you want to see more Performance Art!

"There is no designated stage area, blurring the line between audience and performer, and seating is sparse, as participating in the performance is encouraged. The unknown terrifies you, and yet something, maybe this very feeling, pushes you inside. Welcome to Grace Exhibition Space."Terri Ciccone. Bushwick Daily January, 2013

"On each night, and in each performance, the human body is redeemed from the mundane and made anew." David Lagaccia, Williamsburg Greenpoint News+Art (June, 2012)