North American painter, Gretchen (b. 1974) grew up in an old farmhouse in rural Maine – a mostly untouched, rural environment perfect for observing and exploring.
Attending the prestigious Bates Liberal Arts College, Maine, she initially started a Music Major but quickly moved to the Visual Arts Programme, where, following a term abroad at the Tyler School of Art, Rome, she fell in love with abstract painting. She graduated in 1996 with a BA Fine Art.
She later had a career in Graphic Design, leaving that to become a full-time artist in 2012.
My paintings are large and colorful with a botanical feeling mixed with architectural elements. I want people to feel like the moment in “Where the Wild Things Are” when Max’s bedroom becomes a forest.
I work best on a human-sized canvases and wood panels so that there is enough room for all the things—repeated marks, opaque patches of acrylic color bumping up against translucent fields, drawn lines, scrapes, smudges, and smears.
I’m an abstract painter but drawing is essential. I have found that pulling visual elements from real-life keeps the painting fresh, bold, and generates a feeling of unease or a strangely recognizable weirdness to the piece. I love titles! The titles are a gentle invitation to that zing of understanding.
Gretchen works from her home studio in Massachusetts, USA and is represented by several galleries in the US.
We are delighted to be the first gallery outside of the US to show her fabulously uplifting work.
