Featured Artist Anne Bedrick

Artist Anne Bedrick presents a portfolio of complex and energetic abstract paintings. See more of her work by visiting her website.

 

 

I am interested in making complex art that gives you a different experience every time you look at it.

 

 

Art that meets you where you are on any given day and lets you get lost in its surface. The beauty in a brushstroke created when it is loaded with two colors and confidently swooshes across an area, the mystery of a thin cloudy wash, the excitement in finding a new way to make a mark, the way that pigment settles when it has a lot of water mixed with it. All of these have become the story of my work.

 

 

The goal is to use all or some of these techniques to make a composition that speaks to the viewer and moves them, nonverbally, in the same way that jazz or classical music can.

 

 

Each day when I arrive at my studio, I spend some time looking at yesterday’s work. Then I ask myself not only what it needs but also, “What’s interesting me today?” Often that involves finding a balance between areas full of activity and those full of spaciousness. Lately I have also been really intrigued by keeping the painting as true to how it started and as fresh as possible, while still building in interest and depth.

 

 

I often speak of it as a metaphor for the way we shape ourselves from the children we once were, to the adults that we are now. We try to keep the best parts of ourselves intact and edit the parts that aren’t working.

 

 

That said, we can only push ourselves authentically so much at a time. In other words, my goal might be to keep a painting fresh, but when I follow the paint, it leads me at least partially back to myself and the kind of marks and layering that are natural to me and my work.

 

 

The growth comes in the dance between the goals I set for myself and what comes naturally. A piece is truly finished when it makes the viewer pause to really notice what is in front of them.

 

 

I have been painting full time since 2016. Although I studied sculpture in college, as a painter I am completely self-taught. I switched from sculpture to painting because I fell in love with color. The love affair is still in the honeymoon phase!

 

 

I am ever-present to the beauty that colors make when they abut or intermingle, and it absolutely takes my breath away!

 

Artist Anne Bedrick invites you to follow her on Instagram and Facebook.

 

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