Beth Shields "Blue Horizon" Acrylic, Oil and Graphite on Raw Canvas, Seascape-Inspired Abstract in Navy, Santa Cruz California Art, 2023

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In this abstract expressionist painting on raw canvas by Santa Cruz artist Beth Shields, a hard-edged band of deep navy … Read more In this abstract expressionist painting on raw canvas by Santa Cruz artist Beth Shields, a hard-edged band of deep navy runs across the lower third of the canvas, and above it a stormy sky of gray and white tilts upward in broad diagonal sweeps. Red scribbles and small hatch marks, almost like numerals or a coded signature, scatter across the dark band and the clouds, and white splatter falls into the navy like spray. A pale block of white sits at the upper center. The horizon is clear, but nothing else is literal. Beth Shields uses acrylic, oil and graphite on raw canvas, and the oil gives the navy a dense, near-black depth.

The wide format suits a dining room, a console, a bedroom or a long entry. Navy, gray and white fit with natural wood, white linen and black chairs, and the red marks relate to a single accent such as a book, a vase or a pillow. It makes a calm and composed piece for a coastal home or a modern room that wants a strong horizontal.

Acrylic, oil and graphite on raw canvas, 36 x 24 x 1.5 in (91.4 x 61 x 3.8 cm).

Beth Shields combines acrylic, oil and graphite on raw, unprimed canvas. Thin, quick passages of acrylic and long drips sit beside denser, heavier areas of paint, and graphite scribbles and loops draw through both. The raw canvas stays visible between them as a sandy ground. Layers of splatter, scraping and line give the surface a lively, hand-worked depth.

Beth Shields is an abstract painter based in Santa Cruz, California, where she has lived and worked for more than thirty years, with a studio at the Tannery Arts Center. She grew up in Southern California and earned her BA in painting, sculpture and graphic arts from UCLA in 1976. She has said she knew from her first remembered thought that she wanted to draw and paint.

Her work has been collected by corporations including IBM, Visa USA and Metropolitan Life, and by hotels from the Bel Air Hotel to Hilton, Hyatt and Marriott properties worldwide. She has exhibited widely in California, including juried exhibitions at the Monterey Museum of Art, and has taken part in the Santa Cruz County Open Studios tour for three decades. She describes her painting as a search, and one that rewards risk. See less