Louise Arnold + Gretchen Warsen – under 400kb

Gretchen Warsen, The Good Day Collection, 2025, acrylic on wood panel, 21 x 17; Louise Arnold, Woodshed II, 2023, oil on canvas, 48 x 60

Through my art I take delight in exploring the myriad and wonderful details in the world around me as well as in observing and engaging with the larger landscape, both natural and cultivated. As a landscape painter I observe and record elements in the world I inhabit: sometimes in the detail of lichen on trees, the pattern of snow on rocks or the ripple of a breeze as it skims the surface of a pond. At other times it is the expansive view afforded by a clearing in the woods or the furrows on a newly plowed field or dramatic patterns cast by shadows over a mountain range that I find compelling.

My oil paintings have evolved from a descriptive rendering of a particular landscape or details of an agricultural scene, for example, to an exploration of how time, memory and intimacy with specific places are visually realized through the abstract organization of a painted surface. The forms of the landscape are organized in a structure that, while deeply personal, also strives to share with the viewer the joy I find in seeing and painting the world around me.

-Louise Arnold

Two Visions of Nature

Louise Arnold + Gretchen Warsen

Exhibition Reception Date:

May 15, 5:30pm

Exhibition Opening:

May 8

Exhibition End Date:

June 1

Exhibition Year:

2025

Louise Arnold + Gretchen Warsen will be giving an Artist Talk on May 21 at 10:30am. Register here.

“In the weirds,” is my favorite place to be, both when I’m creating and when I’m looking at my work. When I’m in my studio, I lose track of time and, at best, even myself. In just one painting, there are many previous paintings—worlds covered by new worlds. The good parts get saved and the best parts get ruthlessly covered over for the benefit of the whole. No darlings are welcome to stay–as pretty as they are. I work best on a large scale so that there is enough room for all the things—marks, opaque patches of acrylic color against translucent fields, drawn lines, scrapes, smudges, and smears. Even though my work is abstract, I am always drawing from real-life sources–things that catch my eye… an insect wing, the negative space between chair legs, color patterns in a tulip, to bring an element of beauty but also a strangely-recognizable weirdness to the piece. I love the tension that asks, is this organic? Could it exist? Is it a thing or a world? Does this remind me of something?

When a piece is finished, I love the process of coming up a title almost as much as I love painting. It’s important that I find a point of connection with a good title. I think about what was going on in my head—maybe what’s been bothering me or maybe a certain shape will stir up a memory. I choose a title that connects those thoughts with a relatable feeling or moment—the more specific, the better.

-Gretchen Warsen