About Betty Perry
Paint the Light and Air... Paint the Mystery.
– N.C. Wyeth
About Betty Perry
A native of Mississippi, Betty Brand Perry holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Ole Miss. After graduating, she began her career as an art educator in middle and high schools in Georgia and South Carolina. Throughout her life, she has worked as a community volunteer in the Arts. She has served as an organizer of the Art in the Schools program to provide elementary school art education when local funding was cut. A past member of the board of Gertrude Herbert Art Institute, Betty has also worked on grant writing projects to benefit community arts organizations. During downtown Augusta revitalization, she was involved with helping to save Bell Auditorium for the community as an arts and entertainment venue.
Putting an art career on hold to resolve family emergencies and responsibilities is often a characteristic of many women artists. After caring for family in recent years, Betty has begun a personal renaissance in painting, resuming a lifelong dream. During this time, she has completed post-baccalaureate art courses at Augusta State University.
A favorite quote from Abraham Lincoln describes this part of her life…
“I will study and get ready, and perhaps my chance will come”.
Betty continues to study with talented artist-teachers and to explore abstract and mixed media painting in her studio in Augusta, Georgia.
Artist Statement
Art is visual poetry. I believe that all the senses are linked and can be coherently synthesized within a work of abstract art. In an instinctive effort to evoke a bit of sensuous magic, I weave together the rhythm of music, sounds, symbols, calligraphic marks, and other compositional elements into my work.
Many of my paintings begin with layers of line and color that weave in and out, back and forth, slowly building evocative surfaces as I explore my own emotional landscapes. An element of “not knowing” creates a thread of mystery and surprise. By looking to find counterpoint and ambiguity, I paint intuitively that the camera cannot capture.
Undercurrents in my work include influences of botanical-like forms, memories distilled, and the ever-changing worlds that lie beneath the surfaces of ordinary things. I am especially interested in painting what might occur within the garden of my imagination when no one else is watching.
– Betty Brand Perry
