A Brief History
Previously Bethany Ayres, I studied painting, drawing and design at the Center for Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan; and at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. In 1998, I moved to the bay area of California where I lived and worked until 2013. My image style tells the story of learning how to draw in Detroit: a perspective style with an illustrative bent; influences from the museum next door, the DIA. Composition and materials tests were developed in Philadelphia; and a simplified description with a candy finish was well received in California. I was a known, solo-showing artist in the Bay Area, represented by Esteban Sabar Gallery at the apex of Oakland’s art scene, and winning “Best Artist of the East Bay” from the East Bay Express 2007 “Best Of” edition. My work was shown in two and three person exhibits in Oregon, San Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento; and group shows in those aforementioned cities plus Marin and many others on the West Coast; with occasional invitations to group exhibits in New York and Philadelphia.
In San Diego North County, my indoor/outdoor lifestyle has emphasized to me issues of composition. One day, I woke up and realized that most of the paintings in The Museum are purposefully, superficially incomplete, as a means of provoking the viewer into a longer relationship. Learning how to engage these works on my own, I developed a workflow system that unlocks embedded content from paintings that contain it. My main focus at this time is working with this concept.
Embedded Content Slideshow
