DATE & TIME
Wednesday, March 10, 2010 / 1:33 PM
CATEGORY
FEATURE
LOCATION
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
Betty Merken is an inspirational, abstract painter. I recently had the pleasure of designing and developing her new website. In addition, we held a photo shoot in her studio to capture her printmaking process, and witnessing one of her beautiful monotypes emerge was as captivating as the final work of art itself. I loved being surrounded by such colorful and poetic work.
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[A conversation between Ariel and Betty]
I'm curious, what it is about abstraction that speaks to you as a way of working?
I feel that great abstract painting can offer us a glimpse of the spiritual and of the absolute. Because there's often no recognizable subject matter, there's no limit to what we can bring to it. And if we are open to it, abstract works of art can help us to see ourselves. Paintings can change our lives.
How would you describe yourself as a painter?
As a non-serial abstract formalist painter, on a quest for the poetic sublime.
What do you mean by non-serial, isn't all artwork serial, in that one piece follows another?
To some degree, yes; but my work contains many different elements. I have far too much creative energy to lock myself into one way of working. My paintings have strikingly different moods and meanings, and each one becomes an entire story, or world unto itself.
What are you attempting to create in your work?
I am attempting to coax poetry from paint, to transform my materials into spiritual substance. A great painting has a sense of inevitability about it and it makes us silent.
You make gorgeous monotypes as well as paintings. How are the two processes different for you?
They compliment one another. The monotypes grew out of my need to develop a parallel language to my painting... to work an image in two different media and observe the differences and similarities. The transformation of my images from painting to printmaking and back again has strengthened my visual language in ways I could have never predicted.
Can you expand on this?
My early monotypes were a great breakthrough for me in how to perceive space and color in my work. Working flat on the metal plates encouraged me to build the work up architecturally, and this pushed the work further toward a very personal approach to geometric abstraction.
Not all of your work is geometric, though. How do you reconcile the geometry and the seemingly opposite improvisational painterliness in your work? Aren't these contradictory forms of expression?
At first glance, yes. Geometry and painterly expression are in constant interaction in both my paintings and in my works on paper, and the interaction of these opposing elements creates an underlying tension which is exciting for me to work with and which is crucial, I feel, to mature works of art.
Speaking of mature works of art, can you cite some of the artists who have influenced you?
My paintings and monotypes offer multiple paths into territory made familiar through modernist geometry, building on my affinities with the work of artists such as Mark Rothko, Ad Reinhardt and Barnett Newman. And for his masterful and seductive use of color, I would add Matisse, and certainly Mondrian for his distilled and reductive use of space and color.
What keeps you going?
Everything! I love working. I love witnessing the art coming into being. I enjoy the relationships I have with my gallery dealers, my collectors, and my interns at the studio. And as an artist you're a worker. You just show up. I do this every day and I am learning to trust my instincts and my methods. Something new happens each day, and each day presents new perceptions and challenges—how great is that!
AUTHOR
Ariel Nebeker
TAGS
Ariel Nay Nebeker
Betty Merken Studios
Seattle Painter
Seattle Photographer
Seattle Printmaker