BETTE RIDGEWAY

CHROMATIC LUMINOSITY

OCTOBER 16 - NOVEMBER 14

a vibrating frequency

LewAllen Galleries presents Bette Ridgeway - Chromatic Luminosity a virtuoso of lyrical abstraction rendering stained evanescent color and luminous light on canvas into extraordinary sense experiences of enduring graceful beauty. Ridgeway directly pours onto unprimed raw cotton duck canvas opaque and translucent veils of acrylic color that penetrate and stain the fabric rather than sitting on top of treated surfaces like traditional oil paint. The pigments completely saturate the canvas fibers and fuse the color background into a single, unified plane.

Her technique places her in league with the likes of Helen Frankenthaler and Morris Louis who pioneered "soak-and-stain" painting techniques in the early and mid-1950s, bridging between Abstract Expressionism and Color Field art. Her masterful paintings have resonance with the Tachism movement of France from the 1940s and ‘50s with its use of stains and splashes, as well as, more particularly, with the influence of her mentor Paul Jenkins who became famous for his own works of poured and stained paint during the latter half of the 20th century. Ridgeway, however, is distinguished in her work by a distinct and expanding connection with Romanticism, fusing a profound response to nature and deeply felt personal emotions that manifests in the soulful and meditative sensations that emanate from her translucent veils of color.

an american
expressionist

Bette Ridgeway (b. 1940) spent her youth in the Adirondack Mountains near Lake Placid, New York, where early exposure to Hudson River School paintings at the Albany Institute of History planted a lifelong interest in light and luminosity. Following extensive global teaching and travel across Africa, Australia, and South America, she established her home and studio in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she has lived and worked for thirty years.