Betty O'Brien

Betty O'Brien

Studio / Watermedia Academy (teaching facility)

Suite 204 “The Shirt Factory”

Glens Falls, NY 12801

518-260-6764 or 518-798-2822

emobrien@adelphia.net

http://bettyobrienwatermedia.com/

Betty O’Brien is regionally recognized for her “expressively realistic” work in watercolor, acrylic and mixed media. She has exhibited extensively throughout the northeast and won many local and regional awards including those at the Hyde Collection’s former Adirondack Regional Exhibition, The Lake Placid Center for the Arts, the View art center in Old Forge, the Lower Adirondack Regional Arts Council and the North Country Arts juried exhibition, among others. Also an art educator and instructor in a number of venues, she currently teaches classes in her studio and teaching facility at the Shirt Factory, and hosts and teaches workshops for outside organizations.

After completing her formal education with a bachelor’s degree in art education from SUNY Buffalo and a master’s from SUNY Albany in curriculum and instruction, she studied with a number of noted watermedia artists, developing a style of her own mixing realism and abstraction.

“Landscapes, and more recently, lyrical forms gleaned from nature are frequent sources of inspiration. The degree of abstraction is discovered as the subjects qualities are exaggerated and reconfigured. In the process, I attempt to create a sense of mystery, an ideal and some personal truth in my relationship to the natural world. The flux and flow possible with mixing watermedia can both mimic natural forces and help facilitate my responses as the work evolves. I want some experience with my “hidden landscapes” to speak of our universal experience of living in a natural world we are both a part of and apart from.”

"Adirondack Periscope"

"Nature Paper" Hornets Nest