Since the 1970s, Albrecht’s work has evolved from the poured acrylic ‘stained canvases’ for which she first gained widespread recognition, into a pair of signature ‘shaped-canvas’ formats: the hemisphere (half circle) & the oval. These are shapes that Albrecht associates with particular meanings & states of mind. In the shaped-canvas paintings she has been producing since the early 1980s, resonant combinations of colour and geometry create images with a clear poetic impulse, in which references to landscape, family and the cosmos act as emotional points of departure.
Since 2000 Albrecht’s artistic horizons have broadened to encompass large-scale stainless steel sculpture and have witnessed the inception of a series of multi-paneled rectangular paintings featuring an inner rectangular ‘threshold’ motif.
In 2009 Albrecht began working on a new series of rectangular paintings featuring oval-shaped vortices of colour combined with slender horizontal geometric figures. The first of these paintings were exhibited in her exhibitions: ‘Between Paint and Nature’ at Nadene Milne Gallery, Arrowtown, and ‘Rosea’ at Mark Hutchins Gallery, Wellington. In 2010 Albrecht showed five in her solo exhibition ‘Roses in the Snow’, at Sue Crockford Gallery, Auckland.
Albrecht continues to develop her ideas using the three painting-stretcher shapes of hemisphere, oval and rectangle.
Parnell Gallery has represented Gretchen Albrecht with her limited edition prints since 2013.
