Gretchen Van Atta Loro
Drawings by Gretchen Van Atta Loro
Gretchen Van Atta Loro was born and raised outside of New York
City. She earned her B.A. at Kalamazoo College, Kalamazoo, Michigan
in 1968. During the next four years she continued her studies on a
small German island in the North Sea.
In 1977 she moved to Texas where she met her future husband, Dr.
Antonio Loro. Opening St. Mark Fine Art Restoration in 1982, she
began working side by side with her husband learning first-hand the
skills of fine art restoration. But it was here own artistic skills
which Antonio encouraged. Choosing color pencil, an unusual medium,
she worked to fully develop its potential.
Gretchen's pencils (colored or graphite) make use of what she knows
intimately, giving her art work the dignity of exemplary "pencil -ness".
Significant pencil work can make use of specific images such as the
grand motifs of Venice that have inspired artists for centuries, as
well as the most humble quiet corners of a city who shares its
secrets only with those who actively seek them out. The subject in
question becomes art; it achieves a relationship to drawing by
becoming a catalyst for which the process of drawing can occur.
Clearly, Gretchen has been touched by the magic that is Venice and
has been inspired to help preserve its significance so that it can
be experienced through line and color. The mastery of composition
appears effortless. The effort is devoted to clarity not
replication. The color pencil medium, fully developed, lends itself
ideally to this end. It works against the banal. The clarity is not
imposed, but rather emerges through her deep-seated subjectivity
that confronts the routine and the unnoticed with a structuring
comprehension.
The "portraits" of Venice differ most significantly from her human
portraits in that they are an expression of her increasingly
intimate and personal relationship with the subject. When
commissioned to do a portrait of an individual, it is necessary to
create an "instant intimacy" with her subject. She tries out
different facial expressions, observes light conditions and its
variations effecting physiognomic studies. She feels that artist
must master the face like an actor; to be able to observe the
external reflection of feelings and thoughts. For instance, she
feels one can only depict an expression of contemplative reserve if
the artist can copy the emotion of this given situation and
translate oneself into that emotional state.
Her series of drawings regarding the Tango in Buenos Aires in the
'30s and '40s came from a place even she is hard-pressed to locate.
Perhaps its "foreignness" to her allowed her to slip into it and try
it on as an innocent. A trip to that city, emersion into the music
and the use of a model with imagination, cinematic experience and a
forceful figure helped her to visit a new place inside her soul. For
most Argentines, the Tango is a metaphor to communicate expressions
of great sadness, melancholy and intense feelings that are situated
not so far beneath cool exterior. Gretchen's drawings, usually
detailed and reality-based take on this drama. They are sometimes
beautiful, sometimes haunting but always intriguing. A brief moment
of life captured to seduce the viewer.
It was with great pleasure and pride that Nolan-Rankin Galleries
presented her first on-woman to Houston and in particular as part of
the traditional INTRODUCTIONS '96 PROGRAM. Her first exposure in
Houston was in 1994 with her participation in the Italian Cultural
and Community Center's presentation at Nations Bank. She has
received numerous portrait commissions which she always approaches
with her boundless energy and wit while pursuing new subjects and
themes for her drawings. The Ballet was the subject of her second
show at Nolan-Rankin Galleries, December 1997, where she focused not
only on the beauty of the dance but the hard work behind the
curtain.