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Jessie Benton Evans http://www.jessieevans-dongray.com Mediums - Artist's Statement - Evans, an expressionist artist who works with great energy, vigor and freedom, paints large acrylic landscapes from life. Often painting canvases up to eight feet wide, she leans them against her van, lays them on the ground or even ties them to a giant saguaro cactus. Evans's paintings may be more accurately termed skyscapes because they emphasize the sky, clouds, rainbows, sunbursts, storms, stars, moon, sunrise and sunset. They are rich in color, vibrant with the artist's feeling for nature and personal expressiveness through sinuously twisting clouds, voluminous forms and rays of light contrasting with dark shadows. To Evans, nature is alive and always changing. The drama of sky, earth, wind, smell, sound and total reality is so original that its immediacy forces her into unexpected discovery. She totally empathizes with nature, thrusting herself into it, exulting in its beauty and freedom. While she is drawn to certain scenes, she allows the variation of seasons, times of day and weather of the moment to determine the paintings' final effect. She is passionately attracted to nature and wants to feel and see whatever she paints. Evans also likes to paint people, because she is curious about personalities. And, according to her, most faces twist and turn like landscapes, changing like the sky. Gallery Affiliations - Cline Fine Art, 4200 N. Marshall Way, Scottsdale, AZ 85251 Exhibitions - 2002 Lincoln Center, New York City 2001 Phippen Museum, Prescott, AZ (Nov.-Dec. 2001) In Celebration: A Century of Arizona Women Artists. 2001 Sky Harbor Airport, Phoenix, AZ, In Celebration: A Century of Arizona Women Artists 2001 Art Students League, New York City 2001 Desert Caballeros Western Museum, Wickenburg, AZ, In Celebration: A Century of Arizona Women Artists 1999 Lincoln Center, New York City 1999 Inger Jirby Gallery, Taos, NM 1998 Lincoln Center, New York City 1998 Lincoln Center, New York City 1997 Deborah Hudgins Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ 1996 Deborah Hudgins Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ Karin Newby Gallery, Tubac, AZ (since 1990) 1995 Sun Cities Art Museum, Sun City, AZ 1994 Steven Boone Gallery, Santa Fe, NM 1992 Es Posible Gallery, Carefree, AZ 1990 Hartley-Hill Gallery, Carmel, CA Karin Newby Gallery, Tubac, AZ (through 1996) 1989 Western Images Gallery, New York City Tubac Center of the Arts, Tubac, AZ Sedona Arts Center, Sedona, AZ 1988 C.G. Rein Galleries, Scottsdale, AZ 1987 C.G. Rein Galleries, Santa Fe, NM Gregg Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ 1986 Art Students League, New York City Project America, Jacob Javits Building, New York City Lincoln Center, New York City 1985 State University of New York, Oswego, NY Lincoln Center, New York City New York Institute of Technology, New York City 1984 State University of New York, New Paltz, NY Lincoln Center, New York City Summit Arts Center, Summit, NJ Marist College, Poughkeepsie, NY 1983 Art Students League, New York City Arbitrage Gallery, New York City 1982 Lever House, New York City Adelphi University, Garden City, Long Island, NY Pace University, Briarcliff, NY Pond Lane Gallery, Southampton, NY 1981 Parrish Museum, Southampton, NY Brooklyn Law School, Brooklyn, NY Adelphi University, Garden City, Long Island, NY 1980 Art Students League, New York City Hammerquist Gallery, New York City Baruch College, New York City 1979 Peekskill Museum, Peekskill, NY Ladycliff College, Highland Falls, NY 1978 Ingber Gallery, New York City Manhattan Boro President's Office, New York City 47 Bond Street Gallery, New York City |  |
Biography - Jessie Benton Evans was named for her great grandmother, an early Arizona painter of impressionist landscapes, who came to the state in 1911 after living the first half of her life in Ohio, Chicago and Europe. The great grandmother declared young Jessie to be an artist, and put a brush in her hand when she was barely old enough to hold it. Growing up in the desert near this influential, supportive artist relative, Evans learned to see nature as art and to paint directly from life. Born and raised in Arizona, Evans received a B.A. degree in Art and English from Arizona State University and an M.A. in both subjects from the University of Iowa. After college, she and her husband, artist Don Gray, moved to New York City in the 1960's, where they exhibited their paintings, produced and moderated programs on the arts for Manhattan Cable Television and wrote for various arts publications. They lived there for five and one-half years, then moved sixty miles north of the city to a farm for the next twenty years. They returned to Arizona and the southwest ten years ago. Evans's paintings are in the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC and many private collections. Jessie Benton Evans's father was an architect, as was her grandfather, Robert Evans, who built and managed the early Scottsdale resorts, Jokake and Paradise Inns. Her mother, Nancy Evans showed champion basset hounds and gave Evans a love of nature. A woman of versatile talents, Evans was an associate editor and art critic for the New York Arts Journal and wrote for Art World, both art newspapers in New York City. She produced and moderated an interview program on Manhattan Cable Television, hosting celebrities like Nobel Laureate author Isaac Bashevis Singer, newsman Edwin Newman, playwright Frank Gilroy, actor Richard Kiley, Broadway director Joshua Logan, heavyweight boxer Floyd Patterson, photographer Peter Beard and many others. She was also an upstate New York newspaper feature writer, and hosted an interview program on local radio. In Arizona, Evans was Associate Editor, feature writer and art reviewer for Ashes art newspaper. |