Artist Gay Bechtelheimer is showing an exhibition of her new works, entitled “Outermost,” in SAAC’s Merkle Gallery. Her work, which includes watercolor, pastel, and collage, will be on display May 7-28. The bold, colorful, and emotional pieces will be unveiled to the public with a reception on the evening of May 7, starting at 6:30 p.m. Each piece is a different exploration of the artist’s point of view, from dramatic seascapes to diminutive abstracts.
Bechtelheimer, a retired educator from the El Dorado Public Schools, looks to a diverse group of sources for inspiration in her work. The primary drivers for this body of work were the atmosphere and aesthetics that she experienced on a recent trip to Cape Cod. “I was not prepared for the expanse of sea and sky that I was going to see,” she said. “You go to the outermost point of our continent, and the magnificent, vast horizon is the only thing in front of you. There is a profound, eternal certainty to those waves.”
The exhibition’s title is drawn from the book “The Outermost House” by Henry Beston. He, along with Henry David Thoreau and Robert Finch are the preeminent chroniclers of this stretch of shoreline, and passages from their writings are also included on the gallery’s walls.
“I was thinking about water and waves, and working from videos of the tides, and it inevitably led me to think about the rivers that we cross all the time, all the way to the gulf,” Bechtelheimer said. This geographic transition led to an artistic transition as well, as Bechtelheimer moved from working in pastels for the realistic wave drawings into watercolors for “Four Rivers and a Creek.” This series of loose, relaxed watercolors allowed the artist to explore the interaction of pigment and paper to reflect the interaction of water and earth.
Bechtelheimer, however, came upon a major obstacle when her studio had to undergo an unexpected renovation. With her supplies and space in disarray, she turned to her trusty scissors and paper to create a series of cut-paper collages. “They were really restorative projects during a time of turmoil in my physical space,” she said. “I needed to do them for myself!”
While the complete exhibition spans the worlds of both abstract and representation art, it is deeply connected by the artist’s obvious joy in the manipulation of color, shape, and line. Each piece has an undeniable sense of immediacy, which is only heightened by experiencing them in a single installation.
“Outermost” can be viewed free of charge at the South Arkansas Arts Center, 110 E. 5th St., in El Dorado, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.
More about the artist at gaybeck.com