Betsy Eby

Betsy Eby, Plum Season, 2022, Oil and wax on panel, 50 x 44 inches
Betsy Eby, Plum Season, 2022, Oil and wax on panel, 50 x 44 inches

Exhibitions

News

Bo Bartlett and Betsy Eby in Zest Magazine

February 8, 2020

Winter Edition of Maine's Zest Magazine

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Under the Influence in Fine Art Connoisseur

September 13, 2019

Somerville Manning Gallery announces the exhibition “Under the Influence: Contemporary Artists and the Masters Who Inspire Them.” Opening reception: Friday, September 20, 2019, 5:30 – 7:30 at their location in Breck’s Mill in Wilmington, Delaware. The exhibit closes October 12, 2019. Click here to read more. About

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Betsy Eby paintings in new Miami restaurant

February 9, 2019

Art takes a front seat at new Miami restaurant, Ad Lib, with original paintings in a gallery-like setting. We are thrilled to share that a large triptych by Betsy Eby is hung prominently in the space. Click here to read more About

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About

In her paintings, Betsy Eby fuses the line between the musical and the visual composition. A classically trained pianist, she seeks in her work what Rothko described as “the place where music lives”. The layers and gestures of her paintings evoke musical spaces and rhythms while drawing on patterns found in nature. From her early childhood, musical and natural rhythms blended in Eby’s sensibility. She spent her first years of life in a small town on the Oregon coast, practicing at the family piano by the age of five. Today her work reveals that interconnected sensitivity: her delicate, organic compositions become synesthesias of sound and image.

Eby utilizes the technique of encaustic, which means “to burn”. The process is an ancient one by which layers of pigments, sap, and wax are fused together by the flame of a torch. Eby has slowly refined the technique to her own language, composing dynamic surfaces and deep, luminous spaces. Her paintings are visceral, yet for Eby they shimmer with something more of the mystical, hovering between material and immaterial worlds as do the worlds of sight and sound.

Betsy Eby received her BA from the University of Oregon. She and her husband, painter Bo Bartlett, split their time between studios in Columbus, Georgia, and Wheaton Island, Maine. She savors the spaciousness and light of both of these studios, and her paintings evoke the atmosphere of the vast ocean that surrounds her small island residence in Maine.

-Suzette McAvoy

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2022        Winston Wachter, New York, NY

2021        You Are The Sky, Octavia Gallery, New Orleans, LA

2020        Mystics, Winston Wachter Fine Art, Seattle, WA

2020        Atlantic, Dowling Walsh Gallery, Rockland, ME

2018        I AM OCEAN, Winston Wachter Fine Art, Seattle, WA

2018         Bellwether, Octavia Gallery, New Orleans, LA

2017         Frequency, Cadogan Contemporary, London, England

2015         Painting with Fire, Ogden Museum, New Orleans, LA

2015        Southern Spirituals, Winston Wachter Fine Art, Seattle, WA

2014         Painting with Fire, Center For Maine Contemporary Art, Rockport, ME

2012         Ayres and Fantasies, David Klein Gallery, Birmingham, MI

2010        The Red Paintings, Gail Severn Gallery, Ketchum, ID

2009        Abundance, Winston Wachter Fine Art, Seattle, WA

2008        New Paintings, Jean Efron Fine Art, Washington, DC

2004        New Paintings, Ameringer Yohe Gallery, Boca Raton, FL

2004        Strings of Happiness and Desire, Allene Lapides Gallery, Sante Fe, NM

2002        New Works, Andrea Schwartz Gallery, San Francisco, CA

2001        Elemental Divide Series, Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta, GA

2000        New Works, Cervini Haas Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ

Selected Group Exhibitions

2022        COMPETERE: an exhibition of artist couples, Bo Bartlett Center, Columbus, GA

2021       From The Inside Out, Gross McCleaf Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

2021       View From Here, Dowling Walsh Gallery, Rockland, ME

2020       Betsy Eby, Chris Hayman, James Henderson, Octavia Art Gallery, New Orleans, LA

2019       Under the Influence, Somerville Manning Gallery, Wilmington, DE

2018       Peers & Influences, The Bo Bartlett Center, Columbus, GA

2017       New Year 2017, Cadogan Contemporary, London, UK

2017       Under the Influence, Somerville Manning Gallery, Wilmington, DE

2016       Linda Christensen | Betsy Eby, Gail Severn Gallery, Ketchum, ID

2015       180 Degrees, The Curator Gallery, New York, NY

2014       Valley Painters, Columbus Museum, Columbus, GA

2013       Tonalism, Sullivan Goss Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA

2012       Petit Tableaux, Winston Wachter Fine Art, Seattle, WA

2011       Bird + Flowers, Schnitzer Museum of Art, Eugene, OR

2010       Mystical Shores, Somerville Manning Gallery, Greenville, DE

2009       The Artist Eye, Gail Severn Gallery, Ketchum, ID

2008       Summer in Chelsea 2008, Winston Wächter Fine Art, New York, NY

2006       Spirited Expressions, Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

2005       North by Northwest, Winston Wächter Fine Art, New York, NY

2003       Botanica, Winston Wächter Fine Art & Scherping West, Seattle, WA

2002       Betsy Eby and Jessica Brommer, Turner Carroll Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

2002       Encaustic Now, Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta, GA

2001       Aggregations, Gwenda Jay Addington Gallery, Chicago, IL

2000       Retrospective Prospective, Anne Reed Gallery, Ketchum, ID

Selected Public Collections

Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, Laurel, MS
Morris Musem, Augusta, GA
Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, GA
Columbus Museum, Columbus, GA
Jordan Schnitzer Museum, Eugene, OR
Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, WA
Ulrich Museum of Art Wichita, KS
United States Embassy, Dubai, UAE

Education

1990            University of Oregon, B.A. in Art History

Lectures & Affiliations

Videos