Betsy Eby (born April 3, 1967) is an
American artist and
musician
A musician is a person who composes, conducts, or performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general term used to designate one who follows music as a profession. Musicians include songwriters who wri ...
known for her abstract encaustic paintings. Eby lives and works in
Columbus, Georgia
Columbus is a consolidated city-county located on the west-central border of the U.S. state of Georgia. Columbus lies on the Chattahoochee River directly across from Phenix City, Alabama. It is the county seat of Muscogee County, with which it ...
and Wheaton Island, Maine.
Life
Eby was born April 3, 1967 in
Seaside, Oregon. In 1972, her family moved to the suburbs of
Portland, Oregon
Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...
. Her father worked in the
timber industry, and her mother worked in community college admissions.
At the age of five, Eby began playing the piano and learned the traditional classical repertoire. She continues to study seriously under master musicians.
Eby earned her bachelor's degree in art history at the University of Oregon, with an emphasis in ancient Greek, Roman and Asian
antiquities. In 1990 she moved to
Seattle, Washington
Seattle ( ) is a port, seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the county seat, seat of King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in bo ...
, where she lived and worked until 2013, when she and her husband, American artist
Bo Bartlett
Bo Bartlett (born December 29, 1955) is an American Realist painter working in Columbus, Georgia and Wheaton Island, Maine.
Early life
Bo Bartlett was born James William Bartlett III on December 29, 1955, in Columbus, Georgia. Bartlett’s parent ...
, moved to
Columbus, Georgia
Columbus is a consolidated city-county located on the west-central border of the U.S. state of Georgia. Columbus lies on the Chattahoochee River directly across from Phenix City, Alabama. It is the county seat of Muscogee County, with which it ...
. They now share their time between Columbus, Georgia and Wheaton Island, Maine. In 2018, Eby and Bartlett opened the Bo Bartlett Center at Columbus State University, an interactive gallery space designed to engage nearby communities through arts programming.
Work
Betsy Eby works primarily in
encaustic, a painting medium of hot beeswax, damar resin, and pigments. The encaustic technique dates back to the 4th century B.C., when it was originally used for Egyptian mummy funerary portraits. Encaustic was not a common medium for painters until its revival by the Pop artist,
Jasper Johns, in his iconic flag paintings.
Eby uses a technique of layering and spreading pigmented wax over her canvas using brushes and knives. She liquefies the wax with a blowtorch and the layers are fused, resulting in the illusion of surface depth and translucency. This illusion is heightened by Eby's use of
impasto on the surface of her canvases.
Her work expresses atmosphere and motion in a style Eby has referred to as “lyrical abstraction.” An accomplished classical pianist, music bears a prominent influence in her artworks, which are often inspired by and titled after pieces of classical and contemporary music
by composers such as
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading fi ...
,
Alan Hovhaness
Alan Hovhaness (; March 8, 1911 – June 21, 2000) was an American-Armenian composer. He was one of the most prolific 20th-century composers, with his official catalog comprising 67 numbered symphonies (surviving manuscripts indicate over 70) and ...
,
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms (; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the mid- Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, he spent much of his professional life in Vienna. He is sometimes grouped wit ...
and
Claude Debussy
(Achille) Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influential composers of the ...
.
Eby's native Pacific Northwest inspires her misty palette and foggy, blurred edges, while her study of Japanese art lends restraint and intentionality to her practice.
Early influences on her work include
Morris Graves and
Mark Tobey
Mark George Tobey (December 11, 1890 – April 24, 1976) was an American painter. His densely structured compositions, inspired by Asian calligraphy, resemble Abstract expressionism, although the motives for his compositions differ philosophi ...
, among a group of artists known as the Northwest Mystics, known for their muted colors and economy of brush. Since moving to Georgia, Eby has explored the richness of the light and an expanded color palette.
Eby is guided by the idea that “the health of our environment is a mirror to the health of our collective conscience.”
In the South, Eby is keenly aware of the edges defined by the cultural tension of competing beliefs related to race, religion, and politics.
She finds parallels between this cultural tension and the natural environment during her studies of nature in Maine, where changes in weather can be sudden and severe.
In 2018 Betsy Eby was to chosen to represent the United States as a Cultural Exchange Artist through the U.S. State Department's
Art in Embassies program in Papua New Guinea and The Solomon Islands. As a cultural exchange artist, Eby aimed to promote a message of female empowerment through creativity, through working with local artists, and participating in television and radio interviews.
Film
Betsy Eby is also a
film producer
A film producer is a person who oversees film production. Either employed by a production company or working independently, producers plan and coordinate various aspects of film production, such as selecting the script, coordinating writing, di ...
and musician for film.
In 2013, she and Bo Bartlett released the feature-length documentary film ''SEE, An Art Road Trip''.
In 2019, she was executive producer and musician for the feature-length film ''Things Don’t Stay Fixed'', the documentary short film ''Helga'', and the documentary ''Lobster Dinner''.
Collections & Exhibitions
Betsy Eby has exhibited widely across the United States. Her 2013 solo exhibition, “Painting with Fire,” traveled to the Columbus Museum of Art in Columbus, GA; the
Morris Museum of Art in Augusta, GA; the
Center for Maine Contemporary Art
Founded in 1952, the Center for Maine Contemporary Art (CMCA) is a contemporary arts institution, presenting a year-round program of changing exhibitions featuring the work of emerging and established artists with ties to Maine. In addition, CMCA o ...
in Rockport, ME; and the
Ogden Museum in New Orleans, LA. Eby's works are held in the collections of the
Tacoma Art Museum
The Tacoma Art Museum (TAM) is an art museum in Tacoma, Washington, United States. It focuses primarily on the art and artists from the Pacific Northwest and broader western region of the U.S. Founded in 1935, the museum has strong roots in the c ...
, Tacoma, WA, the Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, GA, the
Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, GA, and several United States Embassies around the world.
References
External links
Official website*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Eby, Betsy
People from Seaside, Oregon
1967 births
Living people
University of Oregon alumni
Pacific Northwest artists
American women painters
Painters from Washington (state)
21st-century American women artists
American contemporary painters
Abstract painters