Illuminating the Sacred through Iconography

Featured Exhibition | Garde Arts Center, New London, Connecticut

Grace Zazzaro is an accomplished American iconographer whose work is rooted in the timeless traditions of Byzantine art. Her paintings—crafted meticulously in egg temperra and gilded in luminous gold leaf—are meditations on faith, mystery, and the contemplative depth of sacred storytelling. Each icon reflects her reverence for centuries-old techniques while inviting modern viewers into a space of spiritual reflection and stillness.

Grace received classical training in the four-point Byzantine method and has studied under revered iconographic institutions, including the Prosopon School of Iconology and the Izograph School of Iconography in both the U.S. and Russia. Her education in the arts spans institutions such as the Art Institute of Chicago and Metz Arts Center US where she explored design and arts foundations that inform her aesthetic precision and symbolic clarity.

Through her work, Zazzaro seeks to reveal what is often unseen: a quiet spiritual current that flows beneath the surface of life. Her icons are both richly layered and compositionally refined— each one a narrative vessel, conveying volumes of theological knowledge in a single sacred image.

Grace’s iconography has been widely exhibited across the U.S., with solo shows at the historic Salmagundi Club in New York City and Divine Gold in Mystic, CT. Her icons have also appeared in notable group exhibitions at the Mystic Museum of Art, Sheen Gallery in NYC, and the Saint Thomas More Chapel at Yale University, where she was selected for a prestigious commissioned icon project. Her work is held in permanent collections at Yale University and Kings College.

In addition to her artistic practice, Grace is a dedicated educator, speaker, and workshop facilitator. She has served as Artist-in-Residence at Enders Island in Mystic, CT (2016–2019), and lectures on iconography’s theological significance and technical rigor at churches and institutions. Her expertise spans multiple mediums, including egg tempera, watercolor, and encaustic painting, and she is a professional gilder specializing in 24k gold leaf application.

Grace Zazzaro’s contributions to sacred art have been recognized with honors such as the Connecticut Arts Fellowship (2025) and painting awards from the Connecticut Academy of Fine Art. Her icon designs have reached commercial and cultural spaces alike—including a featured collaboration for Frances Ford Coppola’s Virginia Dare Winery in Napa Valley.

Zazzaro is a member of the Connecticut Women Artists (CWA), an Elected Artist of the Mystic Museum of Art, and a former President of the Connecticut Association of Fine Arts (CAFA).

Through every icon she paints, Grace continues to deepen her inquiry into the divine, creating work that bridges the ancient and the contemporary, the seen and the unseen.

Please contact me using my website and all media platforms.

WHY ICONOGRAPHY?

Renew Your Spirit - YouTube Interview

​Lynn Gaffin of Renew Your Spirit interviews  me, Grace Zazzaro, about my work as an iconographer and the spirituality connected with it. Enjoy this Zoom chat here.

MY MINISTRY

IN THE SPIRIT OF CREATION
​"Today we are considering where to turn next as people, faced with no answers, the only way for me that I trust & I know is to turn and face God. We have turned away and separated from the one who has made us, and it has left us cold.
I say yes, there is a way back. For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago."


​Ephesians 2:10
New Living Translation

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