EMERGING ARTIST SERIES
July 2019

Bethany Hartman - ”Remembered”
Rosel H. Schewel Gallery & Theatre (Room 109)

Artist Statement: 

Landscape painting brings what was outside inside. It searches patterns and sensory experiences in nature and brings them inside to be understood and remembered. For me this is a contemplative process that unfolds and is never complete, but builds and renews itself in each moment. I begin this contemplative process by searching through family photos from grandparents, parents, and siblings to find photos that feel familiar through shared experience, or feel familiar from actual experience. For me, the canvas becomes a space to approach the “familiar” photo with a fresh experience each session I work on the painting. I feel the painting is finished when the painting becomes as familiar to me in its painting experience as the original photographer was with the image they were capturing in the reference photo.   Painting has become an act of internalizing. I physically seek to bring the exterior landscape into the interior through landscape painting, and I mentally seek to internalize my family’s visual experiences by familiarizing myself with their photos.  My work is a photo album of family sights and location. 

Artist Bio:

Bethany Hartman is a landscape oil painter from Goode, Virginia. She grew up in Lynchburg, Virginia, and graduated from Virginia Tech with a Bachelors in Fine Arts and a minor in Art History in 2016. In 2018 Bethany started her Master of Arts in Teaching with an endorsement in Visual Arts. She has participated in the 2018 Percolator Art in the Street event in Norfolk, Virginia, which showcased local emerging artist. Prior to this, Bethany has been invited to give an artist talk at Patrick Henry Community College on her solo show, titled STAND.