Mon, 08/13/2018 - 01:06 pm

Cordula Mathias

“Passchendaele” - acrylic on board by Brenda Bettinson. It is among the 21 works in her new show opening Aug. 15 at Mathias Fine Art. Courtesy of Cordula Mathias

This exhibition of new paintings by Brenda Bettinson at Mathias Fine Art, “Lest We Forget,” is an urgent and timely reminder to us of the outcomes of war. It will remain on view until Nov. 11.

The upcoming show’s title commemorates the centennial of the armistice that on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918 ended the carnage and destruction of World War 1.

Executed in an emotional and powerful manner, the 21 paintings, semi-abstract in style, speak to us of the devastation wreaked on populations and landscapes by total war. In a technique that is uniquely her own, Bettinson has created impasto surfaces, which seem to grasp at the light falling upon them. The color, subtle even when strident, is harmonious and never jarring.

For more than 10 years now, master painter Bettinson has probed the subject of war in her studio output. Portions of the resulting works have been displayed in settings such as The Holocaust and Human Rights Center on the Augusta Campus of the University of Maine in 2017. Two years ago Mathias Fine Art presented Bettinson’s first series commemorating the centennial of “WW1: The Earth Remembers.”

Brenda Bettinson has exhibited extensively in Europe and the U.S. She has had one–person showings of her work in prestigious galleries and museums such as, in Maine, the Ogunquit Museum of American Art. Her work hangs in numerous public and private collections.

Throughout her more than 70-year career Bettinson’s art has constantly developed. Stylistic changes reflect her intense analytical interest in visual perception and also her understanding of the human form as a vehicle of painterly expression.

In 2017 Bettinson became an inductee, World Lifetime Achievement, Marquis Who’s Who.

An article on Bettinson’s recent work by art critic and poet Carl Little was published in the July/August edition of Art New England.

You are invited to meet the artist at her “Lest We Forget” exhibition at Mathias Fine Art, 10 Mathias Drive, Trevett on Saturday, Aug. 18 from 4:30-6 p.m. For more information, call 633-7404.