 BJ's Late Night Visit with a Friend Artist's Statement "Vibrant colors, the dramatic contrast of light and dark entice me visually, emotionally, and stimulate my imagination. In addition, I feel a strong connection with objects and places that hold the aura of age, of history. These feelings for color and aura inspire me to share those feelings through my art. Still lifes allow me to share my memories and tell a story through the progression of a series of works. Art, to me, is the love and expression of color, form, shape, and the opportunity to share that will others." |
BJ Setzer is a fine artist born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1955. A resident of the Lone Star State with strong ties to the Boulder County area of Colorado, she works in a variety of art mediums with her main focus in soft pastels. Inspired by the Dutch masters of the Baroque, their use of chiaroscuro and especially the tenebrist painters Gerard van Honthorst and Rembrandt, BJ's work has moved towards complex still lifes emphasizing the strong contrast of dark and light. Her "Memories" pastel series of vanitas works utilizes tenebrism to portray the strong images of the many treasures she inherited from her great grandmother who, born in 1877, spent countless hours sharing her love of the many things she collected. With her still lifes, BJ shares her love for treasures from by-gone days and the memories of a childhood surrounded by antique dishes, cuckoo clocks, turn of the century windup toy trains, and listening to 78 records. While BJ is strongly influenced by chiaroscuro, she also possesses a strong affinity for color: bold & vibrant or subtle & muted. She uses the infinite variety of hue to create expressive, personal images. BJ has won a number of awards for her pastels and dry media pieces. Her work resides in several private collections. |