Show Dates:

June 12 – July 20, 2025

Artist Reception:

Saturday, June 14, 3 - 5 pm

Artist Talk:

Sunday June 29, 1 - 2 pm

Gretchen will give a presentation explaining the inspiration behind her paintings and giving insight into her painting process.

Painting Demonstrations:

Sundays, 1 - 3 pm, 6/22, 7/6, 7/13

Gretchen will give informal painting demonstrations on three Sundays. The public is invited to drop-in and watch Gretchen at work, ask questions and visit with the artist.

FROM UP HERE

Vermont Mountainscape Paintings

Gretchen G. Alexander

“At the Altar”

20 X 16

The Emile A. Gruppe Gallery is pleased to present “From Up Here”, a collection of acrylic paintings by Gretchen G. Alexander inspired by her experiences hiking in the mountains of Vermont.  Gretchen’s impressionistic style captures sprawling vistas, mossy forests, tumbling streams and vibrant fungi in energetic brushstrokes and vivid colors and exudes a deep appreciation for Vermont’s wild places.  While facing a mental health crisis, Gretchen stepped away from a long career as a river ecologist to pursue painting full time.  The show features 40 paintings chronicling the soul searching and healing she sought in the mountains and is accompanied by a book she authored that combines her artwork with a memoir of her artistic journey.

ARTIST BIO

Gretchen Alexander draws on over twenty years as a river ecologist to inspire her art.  Primarily working in acrylics, her work ranges from representational to conceptual with the common thread of exploring the interconnectedness of the natural world.  As an avid explorer of the outdoors, she enjoys allowing her every-day observations guide her in her artistic process.

Gretchen grew up surrounded by the artwork of her grandfather, renowned New England landscape painter Emile A. Gruppe, and undoubtedly this has had an influence on her artistic interests and style.  However, her educational background in aquatic ecology also has a strong influence and drives her interest in the intersection of science and the arts, often coming through in her more conceptual and illustrative pieces that aim to convey ideas around natural processes and scales of life. Much of her work is inspired by the scenery of Jericho, Vermont and the surrounding area where she grew up and still makes her home.

ARTIST STATEMENT

I paint Vermont’s landscape with vibrant colors in an energetic, impressionistic style to convey the wild splendor of the natural world.  My academic background is in aquatic ecology, and while I worked as a public servant scientist in that field for over 20 years, I always maintained a creative practice on the side.  In 2023 I made the bold decision to switch careers to pursue painting full time and have been working to develop my style and creative direction at a high level of dedication I couldn’t afford when working another job.  I break away from traditional landscape painters in that my aim is not to celebrate a bygone era of a colonized landscape, but rather to showcase the resilience of the natural world to overcome human manipulation.  In my practice I explore ideas around the interconnectedness of the natural world, ecological scales of life, and the intersection of science and spirituality.  My background in the sciences lays a foundation in the skillset of observation that translates seamlessly to painting and allows me a unique perspective, both in terms of technical skill as well as how I interpret the world around me.  In my work I aim to convey a deep sense of place that transcends human timescales.  I enjoy pairing my work with my own writing as is evident in my book titled “From Up Here”, which explores ideas around mountains as spiritual gateways, mental health and its relationship to creative expression, and commonalities between science and painting as modalities of “seeing”. 

See more of Gretchen’s work at www.gretchenalexanderart.com