Gretchen Frances Bennett: Air, the free or unconfined space above the surface of the earth
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Somehow, Gretchen Frances Bennett's drawings shimmer. The artist pulls from personal photos, film stills, and the deep, ever-replenishing well of YouTube and Instagram to base her drawings off of, preserving glitches, fuzziness, accidental tears, and worn edges in the final product. With colored pencils, she elevates photos and pixels from the mundane to a spiritual level. The resulting compositions—complicated by the visual equivalent of the sound of static in a radio transmission—look almost like holographs appearing before you underneath the soft museum light. The pencil strokes are short and layered, seemingly vibrating, as if quietly humming or beaming in from another planet or consciousness. The show consists of Bennett's key works from the past 10 years, plus five new large-format drawings. There is also a slideshow by Seattle photographer Paulo Castillo.
by Jas Keimig