About Gretchen Albrecht
- Georgia Brechelt
- Feb 9, 2019
- 2 min read
Gretchen Albrecht is a New Zealand painter born in 1942. She is now well known across New Zealand and frequently displayed in many art galleries (particularly in Auckland).
Her early work consisted of human form, though these works are rarely seen as she quickly turned to landscapes, and placing nature or objects on bold colours backdrops.
From 1970 onwards her work strayed away from oil paints, and she began to work with thinned acrylic, in order to allow the paint to flow more freely, and purposefully working on unprimed surfaced so the liquid would soak and bleed into the canvas and fabrics she used, to mimic watercolour painting.
Her work became more abstract the more she used acrylic, creating landscape inspired pieces with bold colourings, mainly from Auckland’s shorelines.
In the 80’s her narrative began to shift and her work became influenced by the historical art she explored while travelling. As she matured her style she developed the use of “the lunette, which she calls Hemispheres, ovaloid canvases”. (Wikipedia, 2018)
After exploring her work I chose her as I love her bold use of colour in a rainbow format almost. I also love her abstract expressionist style and the use of paint in such large scale. She tends to focus on using reds yellows blues (primary colours) and allowing them to bleed into one another to create secondary colours, all of her landscape inspired paintings appear rainbow-like because of this, a smooth transition between colours, like light refracting from a prism. I like how she creates a layering effect through the thinning of the paint, with a hint of transparency the art is striking as you can see the stripes of paint overlapping where they have dried, and bleeding in to one another, blurring, where they were both painted wet.
Her colour palette is so aesthetically pleasing and joyous, the colours work harmoniously as they are all positioned next to their analogous colours. I want my wallpaper inspired by Gretchen's technique and colour use as I feel that it would create a cheerful inspiring space, which is ideal for an artist who needs inspiration.
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