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Gretchen Batcheller Exhibits Work at Irvine Fine Arts Center


Gretchen's painting Not Yet 2021, airbrush and oil on canvas, 26 in. diameterFrom January 29 to April 16, Gretchen Batcheller, Seaver College associate professor of studio art, will be featured in the exhibit Mirror at the Irvine Fine Arts Center. The works in the exhibit “employ anecdotal and personal narratives as points of departure toward exploring ideas of fragmentation and ambivalence,” prompting viewers to “consider the boundaries between the real and imagined and the fragile delineation between the personal and the social.”

Batcheller’s works on display are informed by both history and memory. Growing up as the daughter of a Navy fighter pilot, she spent much of her childhood stationed in Yokohama, Japan. Her familial ties to the military extend beyond her father to a multigenerational history of Naval officers, including her grandfather, great uncles, and cousins. It’s this personal narrative that informs her paintings. Batcheller’s paintings are situated in the in-between, bridging figurative realism and abstraction, exploring both the nostalgia of her early childhood memories of Japanese toys and cartoons and the “systems of oppression found throughout militarized regions of the Pacific.” 

Batcheller will also discuss her inspiration, process, and artistic background in an upcoming Artist Talk through the Irvine Fine Arts Center on March 15, 2022, at 1 PM on Zoom. To register for the event, visit the Irvine Fine Arts Center event page. To learn more about the exhibition, visit the Irvine Fine Arts Center website.