Into the Abyss

ArticleArt

24 Mar

Up for auction at Webb's Works of Art live auction is a hypnotising abstract painting by Gretchen Albrecht which shows the artist's highly unique visual language.

Gretchen Albrecht, *Abyss,* 1976, acrylic on canvas, 1545 x 1815 mm, Estimate: $90,000 - $130,000

Gretchen Albrecht's lifelong love of method as meaning is entirely evident in Abyss (1976) a majestic painting akin to an encounter with the awesomeness of the stratospheric passage of noon to dusk, or dawn into day.

GRETCHEN ALBRECHT
essay by GEORGINA BRETT

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Should someone make mention of Gretchen Albrecht, while in the absence of one of her artworks, the mind’s eye will undoubtedly conjure up one of the artist’s stained canvases, composed of bleeding fields of colour.

Albrecht established herself as a pioneer within the field of abstract expressionism in Aotearoa New Zealand during the 1970s, when she moved away from figurative representation to intensively hone the formal components of what makes a painting. Consequently, she liberated her work from content in favour of focused exploration into process. “Gone were the trappings of narrative and symbolism... Gone too was her commitment to naturalism.” And born was a lifelong love of method as meaning, and a visual language all of her own, one that is now synonymous with the artist.

Albrecht’s paintings are quietly sophisticated, unassumingly complex, and surreptitiously seductive. Her paintings pull the viewer into an intimate meditative space of pure experience, as they get lost in looking at the dynamic play between colour, depth, and movement, form and gesture. “As … colours shade from warm to cool and their shapes flare and taper, they call to mind a host of natural movements, like the swelling of the sun within the sky, the sweep, surge and drift of ocean currents, or the shadowy contradiction of the land as night begins.”

Painted in 1976, Albrecht’s Abyss exudes the magnificence and beauty found in the natural world. Looking at Abyss is akin to an encounter with the phenomenological awesomeness of the stratospheric passage of noon to dusk, or dawn into day. The compositionally orchestrated colour and form are, in themselves, meaning-generating elements.

At the time Albrecht created this work, she was living with her partner James Ross in Tāmaki Makaurau’s westside suburb of Titirangi. She spent much time out amongst the wild west-coast landscapes and beachlands of Karekare, Piha, and Whatipū. While we can see in Abyss Albrecht’s newly developed automatic approach to making paintings—drawing from memories and sensations experienced during these beach visits—nature and memory are fundamentally employed by the artist as means for technical and compositional exploration.

Although we, as beholders, recognise Albrecht’s undeniable artistic skill, it is the painting’s emotional and psychological affect that makes her work so eternally alluring.