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Artist Crush: Beth Kennedy

Wednesday, January 5, 2011 · 3 Comments

Beth Kennedy is an Australian-painter whose work I fell in love with for its striking and unapologetically-feminine color palette. These intimate scenes, abstracted by aberrant patterns and flat planes, are beautifully composed and tap into deep feelings of loss, sadness and love from the perspective of a woman.

It’s Better This Way

I am first and foremost a storyteller; the narratives within my works are both personal and shared… By hinting at a moment from a story, I invite the viewer to see their own memories or emotions reflecting back at them. The enigmatic works I create explore psychological dislocation and fragility, strength, bereavement, pain, beauty, joy and loss.

But How Could I Know You Would Return?

Pattern and colour are important aspects of my work. I work intuitively with colour, at times allowing it to flow across the canvas in pastel washes, and at others using it in bold opaque areas… Amongst this, wavering patterns move in and out of focus, eventually finding their place and adding depth and beauty to the paintings.

I Already Knew

All along however, it is about the women whose space these patterns, washes, lines and colours share. These women inhabit the works – and we watch and participate as they love deeply, as their hearts break, as they grieve, and as they celebrate the little wonders that life brings their way.

A Little More Silence

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Wished For You

Tags: Art

3 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Cathy Nichols // Jan 5, 2011 at 9:29 pm

    Wow. These are beautiful paintings with some of the most poignant titles I have come across. Thank you for sharing Beth’s work here!

  • 2 Kate // Jan 7, 2011 at 9:24 am

    the titles are wonderful, aren’t they. i normally don’t include titles but these tell part of the story.

  • 3 Katie // Jan 8, 2011 at 12:05 pm

    lovely and heartfelt depictions..

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