Peripheral
eries
agazine
Special Edition
Contemporary Art
Peripheral ARTeries meets
Bette Ridgeway Bette Ridgeway is best known for her large-scale, luminous poured canvases that push the boundaries of light, color and design. Her youth spent in the beautiful Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York and her extensive global travel filled have informed her colorful palette. For the past two decades, the high desert light of Santa Fe, NM has fueled Ridgeway’s art practice. Her three decades of mentorship by the acclaimed Abstract Expressionist Paul Jenkins set her on her lifetime journey of non-objective painting on large canvas. She explores the interrelation and change of color in various conditions and on a variety of surfaces. Her artistic foundations in line drawing, watercolor, graphic design, and oils gave way to acrylics, which she found to be more versatile for her layering technique. Ridgeway has spent the last 30 years developing her signature technique, called “layering light,” in which she uses many layers of thin, transparent acrylics on linen and canvas to produce a fluidity and viscosity similar to traditional watercolor. Delving further, Ridgeway expanded her work into 3D, joining paint and resin to aluminum and steel with sculptures of minimal towers. Ridgeway depicts movement in her work, sometimes kinetic and full of emotion, sometimes bold and masterful, sometimes languid and tentative. She sees herself as the channel, the work coming it comes through her but it is not hers. It goes out into the world – it has a life of its own.
An interview by Matthew Anderson, curator and Katherine Williams, curator peripheral.arteries@europe.com
New Mexico-based artist Bette Ridgeway kindly took some time this week to discuss her art and her creative process, and we are
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particularly pleased to introduce our readers to her unique craftsmanship and passion that marks out her exploration of contemporary Abstract Expressionism. Hello Bette and a warm welcome to this special edition of Peripheral ARTeries. Trained as a watercolorist, your artistic