Gretchen Albrecht’s Possess was made at a moment in her career when a new direction had just opened, following an influential encounter with Piero della Francesca’s Madonna del Parto (c. 1460) in a chapel at Monterchi, Tuscany, Italy. From 1981, she began a series of contemplative compositions – mostly paintings – based on the half circle, echoing the Virgin’s swelling pregnant form and characteristic curve of Romanesque architecture. The use of intense and expressive colour within the divided form became part of an ongoing exploration.

(Perilous: Unheard Stories from the Collection, 6 August 2022- )