Los Angeles artist Whitney Bedford debuts a new, large-scale painting when her works are featured at an exhibit opening October 26 at the San Luis Obispo Museum of Art.
Bedford, who was born and raised in Baltimore, has lived by the beach in Los Angeles most of her life. She feels that a constant sense of travel, a love of art history, and a new rooted amazement at flora and fauna have most directed her work.
Bedford’s early paintings, representing the natural world, consisted of shipwrecks, icebergs, rainforests, lightning strikes, and fireworks. References to works by artists such as John Constable, Theodore Gericault, Pierre Bonnard, Paul Gauguin, Milton Avery, and Charles Burchfield are the foundations of the paintings she makes, which portray the deteriorating natural world.
Her exhibit at SLOMA, Whitney Bedford: The Window, runs through February 16 of next year and includes her new work in conversation with paintings loaned from her California-based collectors and works on paper. She is represented by galleries in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Paris, and Australia.
Bedford will give an artist’s talk on Thursday, October 24 at 5:30 p.m. at The Penny in downtown SLO. The talk is free but an RSVP is required.