Painter Gretchen Kaye recently exhibited her collection of 55 paintings entitled The Portable Park at Forty Five Downstairs Gallery in Melbourne. She exhibits regularly in group exhibitions and her works form part of private collections both locally and internationally.
Mystery, narrative and movement are the main themes of her work. Her style is described as abstract realism.
Kaye studied oil painting in Hamburg (International Summer Academy for Art and Design) and in Berlin (Schule für Bildende Kunst und Gestaltung) after completing her Diploma of Visual Arts at CAE with Prudence Flint (painting) and Richard Stringer (sculpture).
In 2018, celebrity interior designer and TV host, Shaynna Blaze, selected Kaye’s painting, ‘The Secret’ to form part of her design for Channel Nine’s real estate reality show, Buying Blind.
In 2008 Kaye was commissioned to apply her skills to the theatre for scenic artwork for the stage show, Tango’s Violin (directed by Alan Becher, Former Artistic Director of Perth Theatre Company). Kaye designed and painted the backdrop which measured 11 x 6 m. The backdrop has been seen throughout the tour of the show through major venues in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.
Kaye, who lives inner city, focusses on the far reaching effect of tranquility, which parks and nature offer the community. She believes that everything we see is viewed through our personal layers of memory and what the artist creates reminds us of what we already know.
"Over the years I’ve wanted to capture on canvas the feeling of being in a park. I wanted to be able to look at my painting and be transported back into that same feeling, from no matter where I was at the time. And so I named this exhibition, The Portable Park.
Parks gift us a priceless portable freedom.
We take this gift home with us and I paint this freedom."
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