Betsy Eby

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

• Art Talk, Lauren Rogers Museum, Laurel MS, March 2019
• Betsy Eby in conversation with Stefano Catalani, Winston Wachter Fine Art, Seattle WA, December 2018
• Betsy Eby & Bo Bartlett in Conversation with Alyssa Monks, New York Academy of Art, New York NY, October 2018.
• Helga (Documentary short) 2018, Producer
• Things Don’t Stay Fixed (feature film) 2018, Executive Producer, Musician
• Cultural Exchange Artist with the United States Department of State, Art and Embassies, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands, March 2018
• A Lobster Dinner (feature film) 2018, Executive Producer, Musician
• SEE, An Art Road Trip (feature film) 2013, Cinematographer, Co-Director, Editor, Executive Producer, Writer, Musician
• Lecture, Painting With Fire, Columbus Museum, Columbus GA, October 2013

Videos

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