Rhode Island artist Beth Johnston conveys the beautiful balance of light and shadow in her landscape, still life, and figurative paintings. She captures the subtleties of how the time of day, temperature, and the source of light can alter the appearance of an object or landscape. Because of her love of light, many of her works are simple compositions where the focus is on conveying the effects of atmospheric conditions, sunlight or artificial light sources.
Beth enjoys the challenges of creating representational paintings of many diverse subject matter. Her figurative work sometimes captures the attitudes, emotions, and body language of her subjects, or may depict their place in nature, at home or as part of the universe. Living in “the ocean state”, the colors, shapes and patterns formed by water are also captured in many of her paintings. Beth’s education and training in the sciences provides a foundation for understanding and accurately capturing the anatomy of her human figures or structures in nature. Study at the Rhode Island School of Design reinforces that foundation.
Beth credits old masters and 21st century artists in helping to develop her unique art work. The influences of Caravaggio and Vermeer’s lighting and Chardin’s still lifes of everyday objects can be seen in her paintings. She also looks to living artists Kim English and Colley Whisson who are masters at communicating the colors of shadows, and Steve Huston for his energetic figure paintings. Study at the Rhode Island School of Design, the Cape School of Art and workshops with contemporary masters of light and shadow has laid the foundation for Beth to define her own style in her oil paintings.
Website: http://BethJohnstonArt.com
Blog: http://BethJohnstonArt.Blogspot.com
Beth Johnston joined Pixels.com Licensing on July 30th, 2010.
