Bio -

Celebrated Oklahoma City abstract artist, Beth Hammack has a storied career in art, jewelry, and interior design. She graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a
bachelor’s degree in mathematics, where she spent many hours in the University’s School of Art. Hammack has also studied with private instructors from all over the
world; as well as the Chicago Art Institute and the London City School of Arts. In creating paintings, large scale statement paintings, she says after 70+ years of painting and drawing, “Painting is just putting shapes and color on a blank canvas. It’s just that simple! But there’s a hard assignment to make it a good composition - one which holds the viewer’s eye with interest every time they look at it!” Her pieces often incorporate lightly textured painting with drawing, subtle hues, disguised symbols and barely legible writing – all combined in purposeful abstraction. Hammack’s painting technique involves building layers upon layers of paint and texture in poetic combinations reflecting the richness of her creative life and observations.

Artist Statement - 

Painting is just putting shapes and color on a blank canvas.  It’s just that simple!  But there’s a hard assignment to make it a good composition - one which holds the viewer’s eye with interest every time they look at it! That’s the THINGS I CAN’T EXPLAIN.  After, 70+ years of drawing and painting, I’ve been on a progressive journey which brings me to May 2022 and the 14th year of my show at JRB Art Gallery in Oklahoma City.

Up until my late 50’s I delighted in perfecting realism, still life’s, landscapes, and my favorite portraits and the human figure then the “unexplainable” stepped in as my path to abstraction.  By definition abstraction can be defined as “something which exists only as an idea”.   Two favorite art quotes I have hanging in my art studio are

“Failed paintings are too explicit”.
                    Robert Henri

“I don’t like the ones I understand”.
                     Gerhard Richter

Perhaps these fit with my personal goal to hope to engage the viewer over time.  I love the challenge of a white blank canvas and the creative journey until my eye says, “It’s finished.”  Hope you can share in that same unexplained journey!  There will be plenty for your eye to explain!