Gretchen Reynolds

Bursts of movement catapult across Gretchen Reynolds’ paintings. Roughly sketched people fling themselves over bumpy brushstrokes, toward the peripheral of the canvas, and into the unknown.  Small, shadowy blurs of energy hurdling through the moodily colored vastness, their expressions are obscured. It is their body language—a trait the artist knows well from her dabbles in the theatre and modern dance—that indicates their cautious yet deliberate attitude.  Their arms are hesitantly yet hopefully stretched forward or resolutely pushed behind them, showing they may not know what lies ahead, but they are full of expectation.  They have taken a leap of faith.

Having once been "a one toe in the water kind of gal," Reynolds has taken the plunge with her art. Now she exalts the tenuous sense of duality that is so common to the human condition in her work.  In a single painting Reynolds can indicate fear and courage, past and present, shadow and light, abstract and real, tradition and innovation.