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 have informed her colorful palette. For the past two decades, the high desert light of Santa Fe, New Mexico has fueled Ridgeway’s art practice.
Ridgeway’s 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.
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 comes through her but it is not hers. It goes out into the world – it has a life of its own.
Ridgeway was born in Tupper Lake, a small village in the Adirondack Mountains in New York. At 13, she enrolled in watercolor landscape painting and figure drawing classes at the Albany Institute of History and Art, Albany, NY. Ridgeway went on to study the visual arts with an emphasis on graphic design at Russell Sage College in Troy, NY. At the same time, she was hired as a professional designer at Reuben H. Donnelley Advertising Corporation in Albany, NY. She discovered that the Donnelley Corporation could offer, with its on-the-job training, far more training than any college. “This was my art “boot camp,” says the artist. Ridgeway also attended classes at the School of Interior Design Art and the Art Students League, New York City, NY.
She then struck out across 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.
Returning to the United States, Ridgeway continued to study painting privately with accomplished professionals, while also focusing on raising her family and her work outside of the studio. In 1973, she was hired as visual arts specialist for the Maryland National Capital Park & Planning Commission, where she administered a federally funded CETA program, which provided young artists with studio space. She also created first sports arena Art Gallery at Capital Center in Landover, Maryland. In the mid-1970’s, she was instrumental in the design and fundraising campaign of the Montpelier Center for the Arts & Education in Laurel, MD, where she developed an arts festival for disabled young people. She also chaired the Laurel Art Guild. Ridgeway was then hired to coordinate the national festival program for Very Special Arts, the educational affiliate of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Within a year she was asked to become its Executive Director and CEO.
Ridgeway’s formal art studies provided her the basic tools in the use of materials and technique. While she exhibited some of her work in the 1970’s, winning her awards, her unique style was a long time in development. Through her work with Very Special Arts, Ridgeway was introduced to Paul Jenkins, the acclaimed Abstract Expressionist painter. He became a good friend and mentor, encouraging the artist to work large, eliminate subject matter, and focus on color, space and time. He once jokingly referred to his paintings as “chaos” and Ridgeway’s as “controlled chaos.” She shared her work with Jenkins for nine years before he finally declared, “You are ready for a show!”
Ridgeway took Jenkins’ advice and has spent the last several decades developing and refining her signature technique. She now enjoys international acclaim. She has exhibited with 107+ museums, universities and galleries, and London Biennale, Embassy of Madagascar, Barcelona International Art Fair and Swiss Art Expo. Prestigious awards include Michelangelo International Prize, Leonardo DaVinci Prize and Botticelli International Prize. Mayo Clinic and Federal Reserve Bank are among Ridgeway’s permanent public placements, in addition to private collections and commissions placed around the world.
