Agnes de Bethune

I can't remember a time when I wasn't an artist. It seems to be the only thing I've ever really known about myself. But it's something you cannot choose; it chooses you and you gradually become aware of the implications as you grow up and try to find your way in life.

Agnes de Bethune was born in Massachusetts in 1951. In childhood, she constantly drew and painted pictures and "made things" with her hands. At sixteen she left school and embarked on what would become a long succession of day jobs.

Little did I know I was going to have to struggle to pursue what was so natural to me. Art takes time and energy; and when you have to spend all of it just to pay the rent, it's very easy to become discouraged. But, with the help of friends and following my intuition, I managed to survive those first years of menial labor and bad choices and ended up working in jobs somewhat related to art, like drafting and design.

She continued to live in New England, attending art school briefly in 1976. She met her future husband, Thomas O'Flynn, an artist from California, and together, they moved back and forth across the country for several years before settling on the East Coast again.

This was a long period of experiment, developing skills and leaving adolescent scribblings behind. I was beginning to learn what I had to say and how I wanted to say it. I traveled, tried to figure out how to support myself, attempted to go to school, came to New York and built a studio.

The artist shared a loft in Chinatown with Thomas O'Flynn. They were married in 1983 and a couple of years later, when rents in New York became impossible to support, bought a dilapidated building across the harbor in Jersey City.

I learned about construction on the job; we had to salvage this horrible old building that was falling down around our ears; it was all we could afford but it was ours. My studio practice was severely interrupted for about four years. I felt a little crazy to be cut off from making art, but did get some satisfaction from the manual skills involved in building. By the time I was able to get back to work, I had ideas stored up to last me a long time.

She began exhibiting in NYC in 1992 in "Still Life Today" at the Scott Alan Gallery, followed by "Post-Industrial Perspective" at MMC in 1994.

Around this time, I think I began to take myself seriously as an artist. Partly, it was the recognition that came from exhibiting, but more importantly, I was tackling bigger subjects, treating them more thoroughly than I had before and stretching the limits of what I could do as a painter. I was still not stepping far outside of the realm of what is considered "realistic" or "representational" art.

She has also shown throughout the metropolitan New York area, New England and New Jersey, including shows at the NJ State Museum in Trenton and the Jersey City Museum. She has received recognition in the form of various juried awards. Her work was included in the NJ State Arts Annual in 1994 and she received a 1995-96 fellowship from the NJ State Council on the Arts.

Throughout the '90s, I was working largely in series, exploiting a natural bent for representational painting and putting a lot of effort into showing my work. This latter finally exhausted me; I retreated to the studio and began to abandon the "style" I had established for myself in favor of a more experimental approach. My work became looser and eventually I found even greater satisfaction in work that was completely abstract. Make no mistake, this was not an easy transition. But looking back on some of my earliest pieces, I realized that abstraction was no stranger to me. Apparently, I had to go through many stages of painting before I felt the legitimacy of this form for my mature work.

In 2000, she gave her first New York solo exhibition at the Chelsea Studio Gallery. She has subsequently shown work in universities and corporate offices.

I turned 50 shortly after 9/11 and stopped making art after that. It was a decision motivated by the chaos and uncertainty due to world events combined with the inner turmoil of middle age. I had been trying to revitalize some old ideas and work differently with various media, but my attempts were depressingly unsuccessful. Life without a creative outlet was untenable, so I began to study voice and movement. And very gradually, the ideas I gathered from these disciplines began to inform a new painting practice.

The artist has recently revisited the study of FLOWERS she began in the early 90s. She is currently represented by HAMMER GALLERY in New York City. For several years, she and her husband have been renovating a new building with larger studios in Newport, Rhode Island. Eventually, they plan to move there to live and work.

curriculum vitae
Born in Massachusetts, 1951.
Currently works & lives in Jersey City, NJ and Newport, RI.

awards, grants & fellowships:
17th Annual Juried Exhibition — Award of Excellence, 1992 Smithtown Township Arts Council; juror: Ivan Karp

1995-96 Fellowship — New Jersey State Council on the Arts

publications:
New American Paintings — Mid Atlantic edition, 1994, The Open Studios Press, editor: Steven Zevitas, juror: Elizabeth Sussman

selected exhibitions:

2008

Hammer Galleries, NYC

2007

Hammer Galleries, NYC

2005-2006

Cooke Contemporary, Jersey City NJ

2003-2005

Glass & Associates, NYC offices

2002

Pell Center for International Studies, Newport RI