Winston Wächter Fine Art, New York is proud to announce Beyond Measure, an exhibition of new abstract encaustic paintings by Betsy Eby. These sensual paintings continue to draw from the rhythms and resonances in nature and music, yet convey a greater sense of restlessness than previous work.
To construct her paintings, Eby heats and layers pigmented beeswax and resin in a seductive practice inspired by classical antiquity and Asian landscape painting. In this alchemical buildup of layers, the passage of time is visible. A compositional space is created in which some forms appear deep in the distance while others play on the surface. These forms both confront the viewer and recede into obscurity, evoking an underwater turbulence.
In Beyond Measure, Eby departs from more musical delineated shapes found in earlier work to incorporate more luminous and fluid forms that express human and spiritual connection. The works Sappho and Anaís reference poetry and a poetic perspective on the world, while Corona speaks to the color of the highest chakra in the body, the crown chakra, which is connected to the universe and spirit realm.
Living in both Maine and Georgia, Eby witnesses the friction of ideologies constantly at play. In Georgia she is deeply aware of the edges of opposing factors that create cultural tension in the realms of race, religion, class, and ideology, while in Maine she finds harmony with nature and the elements. The agitated surfaces of these paintings reflect the temper of this current age of uncertainty and deep divisiveness in the world. Yet in the lyricism of her work, Eby seeks nuance, insight, contemplation, and the energy that connects all beings with nature.
Betsy Eby was born in Seaside, Oregon in 1967. She currently resides in Columbus, Georgia and Wheaton Island, Maine. Selected solo and group exhibitions include those at the Ogden Museum, New Orleans, LA, the Maine Center for Contemporary Art, Rockport, ME, the Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, GA, the Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, GA, the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, Eugene, OR, and the Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA. Her work is held in many public collections including the Columbus Museum, Columbus, GA, the Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, GA, the Jordan Schnitzer Museum, Eugene, OR, the Morris Museum, August, GA, the Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, WA, and the Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita, KS. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, American Art Collector, ARTnews, Hyperallergic, Architectural Digest, Elle Décor, Southern Living, House Beautiful, and The Paris Review.
