Gretchen Chappelle: life in still motion | scenes from the pacific shore

While in Sydney two weeks ago I had the pleasure of viewing my friend Gretchen Chappelle’s most recent exhibition ‘life in still motion | scenes from the pacific shore’ at the Art Est. Art School and Gallery in Leichhardt, Sydney. Gretchen has, over the years, developed and refined a post-processing technique involving layers and motion blur to effectively isolate subjects in a frame whilst taking advantage of the colour fields surrounding them. I remember thinking ‘Wow, that’s cool’ when I first saw her post one. Apparently, many folks have asked about the technique with a view to emulating it and while a number have tried I don’t think any of them have mastered it the way Gretchen has.

I liked the prints in the show (and of course catching up with Gretchen!) but the gallery was a long way out … Marina and I caught the train to Summer Hill and then walked at least a kilometer (Google Maps claimed it was 600m!) into the burbs of Leichhardt before we came across the gallery … Gretchen arrived on her bicycle more or less the same time we did. I thought that Gretchen’s work deserved more of an audience than was going to stumble across this out of the way place … it needed more of a walk-in viewing audience/customer base and this wasn’t the space that was going to provide that. Then, I guess those galleries cost more to host shows and the commission they charge is generally higher too. Still these are the lessons we learn when showing 🙂

Good on you Gretchen … the show looked great 🙂

The show ran for the month of May so, due to my slackness in promoting the work of friends you can no longer trek into Leichhardt and see it for yourself … it being quite suddenly June…

Links

• Gretchen’s home page
• Gretchen’s Gallery on Smugmug
• Art Est. Gallery and Art School