Women and horses. Water and bowls. Trees and earth. Wax and paint. Story and soul. These are all part of Gretchen Bederman’s artistic life. “I use women and horses to symbolize and visually animate the elements of  fire, earth, air and water.” “The bowls are female. They contain and hold . . . like a nest . . . like a womb . . . birth place of the cosmos.” Bederman grew up in Houston, Texas and settled in North Dakota after a 1980 visit turned into a stay.  She received her BFA from Minnesota State University Moorhead, and her MFA from the University of North Dakota. Currently Gretchen makes art, teaches art and lives in Mandan, North Dakota.

"As I create my art, I invite the serendipitous into my work utilizing the guidance of the symbolic, the narrative and the figurative.  I weave my images with representation and abstraction to allow for interpretive play.  As I am composing, I think about the elemental forces of our existence.

I combine memories of actual places blending the real, imagined, myth and dream.  I use the figure - in human and animal form, to tell simple intuitive stories in abstract landscapes.  I think of these narrative vignettes as a depiction of both the interior and exterior space of our experience in nature.

As poetry releases our imagination and reaches for our emotional essence, I am exploring the possibilities of uniting the inner and outer world of the spirit in a tactile visual presence.  My search is for images that resonate with the viewer on the unspoken landscape."

~ Gretchen Bederman

"Looking Over"

"Bird Woman"

"Through This Life"

"Browsing Horse and Black Birds"

Gretchen Bederman
Mandan, North Dakota
701-663-2970
Email Gretchen
www.yourart.com/gretchen.bederman