Los Angeles artist Gretchen Batcheller deftly combines airbrush, acrylic and oil painting media to create paintings that bridge figurative realism and abstraction. Her work can be ebullient, cathartic and aggressive, and at other times, unsettlingly still. There is a palpable potency to her work that is deeply connected to her own personal narrative as a military dependent and the space and sensations that currently surround her. Her work reflects a deep exploration of color, pattern and rhythm that echo throughout the compositions of her paintings. They also reveal a self-consciousness derived from multilayered examination of memory, nostalgia, and personal reflections on systems of oppression found throughout militarized regions of the Pacific. Gretchen’s paintings have been featured in numerous regional, national and international venues including the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art in Los Angeles, CA; Burgenland State Gallery in Eisenstadt, Austria; and the Jeju Museum of Contemporary Art in South Korea.