Photo by Jo Thompson.
Artist Statement:
“My paintings are a spontaneous occurrence, born of experience, but maturing reflexively in the process of creation. My technique is controlled improvisation. Gravity is my medium. Images are caught with intent."
Working in both 2D and 3D suits my temperament, and the many facets of my creativity. Beginning with drawing and graphic design in advertising, then painting in oils, finding my way into acrylics, and along the way, realizing I was a sculptor as well. Then came cell cast acrylic (which looks and feels like glass), mysterious and translucent, another lens to look through. Joining paint and resin to aluminum and steel, plexiglass, designing and fabricating minimal towers of welded aluminum. Fusing color and layers of gloss. Reflective. Meditative.
Everything connects. Aluminum bends, torches heat, paint flows, plexiglass fuses into a new substance.
Movement translated to form.
The left side of my brain demands deep dives into online branding and marketing. Dabbling in code. Bringing new language to another aesthetic. Designing custom websites fuels the opposite side of the brain.
Office – studio. Studio – office. The Computer has made friends with the paint and pigment.
Complete balance. Harmony. Satisfaction. Rewards, very deep rewards.
About the Artist:
Since 1996 I’ve maintained an art practice in Santa Fe, NM, where the high desert light fuels my spirit. My career began in the sweatshop of Reuben Donnelley Advertising as a young graphic artist and over many decades taken me to the outdoor marketplaces in Tananarive, Madagascar, the urban dynamism of Santiago, Chile and the modern youthful capital of Australia in New South Wales…Canberra. And many places in between.
Stimulated by the variety of the colors and customs on 5 continents, along with growing up in the beautiful Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York, I have come to know this: I love making things. I love color.
A recent “dance” with cancer has given me some perspective on the creative part of my life, to notice what I notice. I look deeply into my creative impulses and see clearly now that my joy is color. I am in love with the movement in my work, sometimes kinetic and full of emotion, sometimes bold and masterful, sometimes languid and tentative.
My work is how I process life and find my balance. It is no surprise that I am drawn to the computer and the artistic avenue it affords me. I explore digital design and study film making. I love designing an innovative online presence for myself and clients. The computer and the studio bring me balance and rewards.
My journey has not been an easy one. But there are moments in the studio, when everything is working so well, the music is playing and the creative wheels are turning. Time does not exist. Only the piece of art unfolds under my strong hands. I am only the channel. And, like a child, it comes through me but it is not mine. It goes out into the world – to have a life of its own.
Biography
Celebrated for her large-scale, luminous poured canvases, Bette Ridgeway has devoted five decades to developing her unusual pouring technique, garnering international recognition in the process. Born in Tupper Lake, a small village in the Adirondack Mountains in New York, she has traveled the globe - studying, painting, teaching and exhibiting her work - while simultaneously immersing herself in the customs and colors of the diverse cultures of Africa, Australia, Europe, Asia, Mexico and South America. She studied and taught painting during lengthy stays in
Antananarivo, Madagascar; Canberra, Australia; and Santiago, Chile.
Her mentor Paul Jenkins (1923-2012), the acclaimed Abstract Expressionist, encouraged the artist in 1979 to work large, eliminate subject matter and focus on color, space and time. Ridgeway followed his advice and has developed and refined her signature technique. “Color is my subject and my muse,” says Ridgeway. Located in Santa Fe, New Mexico since the mid1990s, Ridgeway is represented by numerous galleries and has been shown in over 80 gallery and museum exhibitions internationally, including a concomitant juried exhibition at the 58th
Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy. Her work is included in many public and private collections.
Her recent awards include the 2023 Leonardo DaVinci International Prize, the 2023 Michelangelo International Prize, the Caravaggio International Prize 2022, the Michelangelo International Prize 2021 and “Top 60 Contemporary Masters 2017” by Art Tour International Magazine. In addition, she won the Oxford University Alumni Prize at the “Art of the Mind” exhibition at the Chianciano Art Museum in Tuscany, Italy in 2012. She has been published in noteworthy art journals and catalogues such as Monk Magazine, United Kingdom; LandEscape Art Review Special Edition, London, UK; and the
inaugural edition of the London Art Biennale 2013, London, UK.
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Exhibition History (selected)
2023 Southwest Gallery, Dallas, Tx.
2022 NYB Gallery, Kirkland, Wa.
2022 MAC Fine Art, Delray, Fl. Group show: Women
2020, 2021 and 2022 Solo exhibition, Ventana Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
2019 Hanson Gallery, Sausalito, CA
2019 Anticus, Scottsdale, AZ
2018 "Large Works" MAC Fine Art, Ft. Lauderdale, Fl.
2017 Desert Mountain Fine Art, Scottsdale
2015 "Layering Light" The Signature Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
2014 "The Language of Color" Legends Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
2013 Gagliardi Gallery, London, UK “Art of the Mind II” Exhibition
2013 London Art Biennale (Inaugural Edition)
2012 Galerie Joyce, Paris, FR, "Color of Butterfly"
2012 Chianciano Art Museum, Tuscany, Italy "Art of the Mind"
2012 Rio Grande Gallery, Albuquerque, NM
2010 The McDaniel Collection, Rancho de San Juan, NM
2008 Ventana Fine Art, Santa Fe, NM
2007 M Gallery of Fine Art, Sarasota, FL
2007 Edmund Craig Fine Art, Ft. Worth, TX
2005 — 2006 Tadu Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM "Surface + Rhythm"
2004 Jordan Road Gallery, Sedona, AZ
2001 Expressions in Fine Art, Santa FE, NM
2000 ArtMerge Gallery, Dallas, TX "The Color of Jazz"
1999 Walter Wickiser Gallery, New York, NY "Milennium Exhibition"
1996 Waxlander Kadouri Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
1989 FOTA Gallery, Alexandria, VA "Emerging Light"
1988 Windows Gallery, Beverly Hills, CA
1986 Kobiashi Gallery, Kyoto, Japan "Watercolors on Paper"
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COLLECTIONS (selected):
The Sammons Trauma Center, Methodist Hospital
Dallas, TX
The Foxwoods
Resort and Casino
Mashantucket, CT
The Mayo Clinic
Scottsdale, AZ
The Waterstone Spa and Resort
Boca Raton, FL
The John Deere
Corporate Art Collection
Moline, IL
The Federal Reserve Bank
Corporate Collection
Richmond VA
The Wynfrey Hotel
Birmingham, AL
Criterion Communications
King of Prussia PA
VonLehman CPA & Advisory Firm
Cincinnati, Ohio
Maryland National Capital
Park & Planning Commission
Rockville MD
Northwestern University
St. Paul, MN
Stratecom
Corporate Collection
Boulder CO
Kostmayer Associates
Corporate Collection
Washington DC
Dane Penland
Director of Photography
Smithsonian Institution
Dr. William G. Melson
Curator Emeritus
Dept. of Mineral Sciences
Smithsonian Institution
Mr. & Mrs. John Warren
Albuquerque, NM
Mr. & Mrs. Michael Lederer
Richmond, CA
Matthew Reese
National Democratic Institute
Mr. & Mrs. Leonardo Abrussezi
Abrussezi Collection
Rome Italy
Lynne Russell, Director of Education
National Gallery of Art
Washington DC
Dr. Jack Kukuk
Director of Education
John F. Kennedy Center
for the Performing Arts
Marcello Nisi
The Nisi Foundation Collection
Rome, Italy
Ambassador Ronald Palmer
George Washington University
Washington DC
Dr. John Syphax
Washington DC
Anne May
Santa Fe, NM
Julie & Jary Shimer
Rancho de San Juan
San Juan Pueblo, NM
Dudley McDaniel, M.D.
Rancho de San Juan
San Juan Pueblo, NM
Rebecca Copeland, M.D.
Johnson City, TN
Mr. & Mrs. Steve Leer
Boca Grande, CA
Mr. & Mrs. Peter Marshall
Toronto, Ontario, Canada