Bette Ridgeway
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The international recognition that Ridgeway’s work has received in recent years includes publication in, among others:
→ "Songs for the Spirit" / "Canciones para el espíritu," by Robert Giron, published by Gival Press, Fall 2023, winner Best Book for Spiritual Bilingual Award, National Association of Book Entrepreneurs
→ Abstract: Contemporary Art
→ Modern Renaissance
→ About Place Journal
→ Contemporary Art Collectors Magazine
→ LandEscape Art Review, London, UK
→ Trend Magazine
→ Magazine 43: Berlin, Hong Kong, Manila
→ MVIBE, Athens, Greece
→ Artwork Gallery Contemporary Art Magazine, Kyiv, Ukraine
→ Sage Magazine, Yale School of the Environment
→ Art Magazenium
→ ArtifactNYC Journal
→ ART UP MI, Milan
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Noteworthy recent exhibitions include:
→ Walter Wickiser Gallery, New York, NY
→ Ventana Fine Art, Santa Fe, NM
→ Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, UK
→ ArtOnScreen at Big Screen Plaza, New York, New York
→ Ocean Galleries, Stone Harbor New Jersey
→ Anticus Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ
→ Southwest Gallery, Dallas, Texas.
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Recent notable awards include:
→ 2026 International Prize Leonardo Da Vinci, Milan, Italy
→ 2024 Future of Art Global Masterpiece Award by Contemporary Art Curator Magazine
→ 2024 International Prize Velázquez & Goya, Barcelona, Spain
→ 2024 Sandro Botticelli International Prize, Florence, Italy
→ Collectors Art Prize 2023/Contemporary Art Curator Magazine
→ Harmony for Humanity: The Global Consciousness Art Prize, Contemporary Art Collectors, 2023
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Bette Ridgeway, acclaimed for her light-filled, large-scale poured canvas paintings, has spent the last 50 years perfecting a technique that has earned her international recognition. Her focus is on pure color. She suspends her canvas on supports then pours layers of acrylic colors of various viscosities, allowing gravity to dictate a dance of cascading pigment onto the surface and within the threads of each white canvas. The effects are luminous, capturing movement in its most fleeting, opulent instant. She is not painting an object or a thing, but rather a moment. She was mentored by the acclaimed colorist, Paul Jenkins 1923 – 2012) and considered to be his heir.
When Jenkins viewed her watercolors in 1979, he saw great promise. "You are a colorist," he said, "produce large pieces on canvas focused on color, space, and time rather than subject matter".
Ridgeway took his guidance, honing her individual means of expression and in 1988 she had her first major solo show at Fota Gallery in Alexandria, Virginia. Her large, colorful canvases drew an enormous crowd and sold out. That was the beginning of her long and successful art career.
"Today we can consider the artist Bette Ridgeway as the one and only true heir of Paul Jenkins: her mentor and teacher. Ridgeway's painting is dynamic and rhythmic; like the most “enlightened” of contemporary composers, Bette traces on canvas what is her ideal score. There is a tacit harmony of color and movement which, through the elegance of the castings, leads the viewer to question the true meaning of art".
~ Dr. Salvatore Russo, art critic and curator, Effetto Arte Foundation, Ro
Working in both 2D and 3D suits my temperament, and the many facets of my creativity. Beginning with drawing and graphic design in advertising, then painting in oils, finding my way into acrylics, and along the way, realizing I was a sculptor as well. Then came cell cast acrylic (which looks and feels like glass), mysterious and translucent, another lens to look through. Joining paint and resin to aluminum and steel, plexiglass, designing and fabricating minimal towers of welded aluminum. Fusing color and layers of gloss. Reflective. Meditative.
Everything connects. Aluminum bends, torches heat, paint flows, plexiglass fuses into a new substance.
Movement translated to form.
The left side of my brain demands deep dives into online branding and marketing. Dabbling in code. Bringing new language to another aesthetic. Designing custom websites fuels the opposite side of the brain. Office – studio. Studio – office. The Computer has made friends with the paint and pigment. Complete balance. Harmony. Satisfaction. Rewards, very deep rewards.
