Art Factory

To first come upon Gretchen Albrecht’s house is to despair that the directions must have been wrong.

Set among the tidy villa-lined streets of Auckland’s Grey Lynn, the beginning of the famed abstract artist’s property is signalled by an ancient oak tree looming above a long bottle-green corrugated-iron fence.

The two-storey house is clad in the same material and, with its single peaked roof, brings to mind rural New Zealand farm buildings. The main hint that it may be someone’s home is a welcoming white front landing and trellising that holds a well-tended bright red clematis.

“It was pretty rumpty when we bought it,” says Gretchen. “It was a joinery factory that was built in 1930 and it was still being used as that when we bought it in 1985. You should have seen the upstairs floor.”

 

Back then Gretchen and her husband James Ross were taken with its industrial-sized scale. Although both are artists it was Gretchen who had her heart set on using the vast upstairs space – where the cabinetmakers once varnished the furniture – as her studio.

It is in this room, its floor now covered in a patina of paint drips and wayward brushstrokes, that Gretchen’s signature work – large coloured hemispheres and latterly, oval canvases that are dissected by geometric forms – have been created and “sent out into the world”.

There are racks of canvas stretched over frames, bound notebooks, files, folders and drawers filled with etchings and lithographic prints.        

Gretchen sees the prints, which are lower in price than her canvases, as an important way to “democratise” the ownership of her work.

“I paint on the floor so that’s why the floor is like it is. At the moment I’m working on ovals. I put them flat on their backs up on blocks so that they’re off the ground because I like to use the paint thin so it sits and settles on the surface,” she says.

“I climb a ladder and look down on it then or the next day. When it’s dry enough to be on the wall I hang it on there and see how to proceed – whether it needs more in one area or another or whether I should leave it as it is and go to the next stage, because there are a number of stages or layers. I build the painting here then I leave it and think about it for some time.”

Downstairs, in the renovated open-plan living space, light streams in through a glass-walled conservatory that marks the far end of the house.

Beyond it, a stainless steel sculpture is mounted among the low-lying succulents. All are overlooked by a great pink magnolia tree in full bloom.

If a painting makes it downstairs that  means the artist considers the work to be complete. “Having your paintings on the walls at home means you learn about your own work and where you might be going to. They also refer back to where you’ve been.”

Gretchen gestures to a painting called Pohutukawa she says is a reference source for her ideas of the moment.

“Earlier this year I kick-started some ideas about flora and fauna. The plant’s stamen is quite pronounced so I started off the year painting in that oval format that suggested ideas around flora. The brush-strokes suggest the turbulence of growth.

“Basically all my work is generated by  using colour and gesture to express a response to the world. That  involves not just thought and feeling but the observable world around me. The other layer that I draw upon is the art historical background that is part of my life as a painter.”

Gretchen and James regularly travel to their studio in London. They recently returned from their annual visit, which included visiting a much-loved Rogier van der Weyden altarpiece and a tour of Romanesque churches in France.

“It’s good to get away. You can access things that are difficult to access in New Zealand and have a chance to re-evaluate things when you get home.”

Two of Gretchen’s sculptures, Entwined and Crossing, will be included in the NZ Sculpture OnShore exhibition at Fort Takapuna Historic Reserve in Devonport, Auckland, 3-12 November. Proceeds to benefit New Zealand Women’s Refuges. For more details, see www.nzsculptureonshore.co.nz