Together | Alone

Kristie Bretzke

January 24 - February 28, 2015

Together | Alone

Opening Reception: Saturday, January 24, 2-5 p.m.

Best known for her portraits and plein air landscapes, Kristie Bretzke’s newest body of work features images gathered from her daily life: an unmade bed, a bathroom sink bathed in light, the glimpse of a curving staircase through a doorway. Using impressionistic brush strokes, a muted, yet warm palette and a chiaroscuro-quality of light, Bretzke’s quiet interiors – many of which are paired in a diptych fashion with a figure or portrait – leave the viewer pondering the story of the person who resides in these spaces.

Simultaneously haunting and seemingly familiar, Bretzke’s compositions are inspired by a combination of memory, real experience and imagined places. “These images are commonplace,” Bretzke writes. “… I hope viewers of my work dream up their own narratives while looking at my paintings.”

Kristie Bretzke received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Minnesota and currently maintains a studio at Traffic Zone Center for Visual Art, an artist cooperative located in downtown Minneapolis. Bretzke has exhibited locally and internationally, including solo shows at XYandZ Gallery in Minneapolis, and group shows at Winfield Gallery in Carmel, California, and the Kaiping Art Museum in Kaiping, China. Bretzke has been an artist-in-residence at the Centre d’art Marnay Art Center in Marnay-sur-Seine, France, the Palazzo Rinaldi Noepoli in Potenza, Italy and at the Kunstlerhaus in Salzburg, Austria.

Kristie Bretzke will be present at the opening reception on Saturday, January 24 from 2 to 5 p.m.