StatementI pay attention to perception, I think about how it frames a subject. I work from observation, from visual references, and from that which develops in my imagination.
My work is a dialogue between looking, narrative, process and formal visual elements.
I returned to oil painting in the last few years, and have been working on a series of portraits, landscapes and patterned figural work that incorporate my longstanding interest in playing with pictorial space.
My subjects are mainly autobiographical; drawn from the people, places and events in my life. My images suggests stories, moments of awareness when worlds of perception and imagination align or collide. I combine monotype printing, collage, drawing and painting to fluidly express these perceptual and narrative weavings in a complex spatial reading that dances between figure and ground.
I studied painting, but spent several years working almost exclusively with monotype and other printing processes. Printed images have a graphic surface that allows for play between flatness and dimension. I often use stencils to repeat forms, adding another element to that play of space and flatness.
BiographyElizabeth de Béthune is a painter who has delved deeply into printmaking processes, particularly monotype printing. She received a BA in Fine Art from
Yale University in 1979, and an MFA in Painting and Drawing from
SUNY Purchase in 1991. In the years between those degrees, she studied painting and drawing extensively at
the New York Studio School,
Brooklyn Colleges MFA program, and with the painter Brenda Goodman. After receiving her MFA, she studied etching at
the Manhattan Graphics Center. In the 1990s she began incorporating monotype printmaking into her art making, and has pursued it intensively in the last decade. She has studied various methods printmaking at
the Lower Eastside Printshop, Womens Studio Workshop and
the Norwalk Center for Contemporary Printmaking. She has been a printmaking fellow at
the Womens' Studio Workshop (October 2003 & January 2005) and
the Vermont Studio Center (January 2006). Summer 2008 Elizabeth spent at the
Skidmore College for the High School Art Teachers Fellowship Residency. Summer 2009, She travelled to the Wildacres Retreat in Little Switzerland, North Carolina, in the heart of the Great Smoky Mountains, to learn about environmentally safe methods of working with oil paints. The summer of 2010 saw Elizabeth applying the methods she had learned about at Wildacres, making oil paintings in a variety of landscapes in New York.
Elizabeth keeps her studio at the YOHO Artist Loft at 578 Nepperhan Avenue in Yonkers, and would love to see you at the upcoming open studio on November 14th, 2010.
Elizabeths work has been exhibited through the tri-state area. Recent shows include group shows
Blue Prints, Center for Contemporary Printmaking, Norwalk, Connecticut, Summer 2007,
Windows to the Soul:
Blue Door Art Association at the Yonkers Public Library, Yonkers, New York, Fall 2006,
Tidal Currents: Upstream Gallery at the Yonkers Public Library, New York, 2006, as well as one and two person shows
Alternated Planes, March 2006, at the
Upstream Gallery in Dobbs Ferry, NY,
Groups and Gatherings, May-June, 2006, at the
Earlville Opera House Art Gallery in Earlville, New York,
Two Rivers, November, 2005, at the
Broad Street Gallery at Trinity College in Hartford, CT and
Gatherings Images of People and Groups, May 2005, at the
Yonkers Riverfront Library as well as participation in
YOHAn Art Event in downtown Yonkers in June 2005. She and her five artists sisters appeared in
Sisters Show Art/3 as part of the Blue Door Gallerys Downtown Yonkers Art Exhibit in June 2006.
More about Elizabeth:
Elizabeth de Béthune has been teaching art for several years. She spent over twelve years as a teaching artist working with
Marquis Studios in New York City, and with both the
Hudson River Museum and the
Westchester Arts Council in Westchester, New York. Presently she teaches Art at the
High School of American Studies at Lehman College. She has also taught Monotype Printing as an adjunct at the
College of New Rochelle.