Light Space & Time Online Art Gallery is extremely pleased to announce that Rita Bartel has been named as the Gallery’s new featured artist and she will now be promoted by the gallery for the next 14 days in the gallery’s Artist Showcase.
Rita Bartel is an internationally acclaimed, award-winning artist based in California, USA. She was selected as 1 of the top twelve finalists in the gallery’s 29th Solo Art Exhibition Series. The placement in this competition qualified her artwork to be showcased in this feature.
Her Artist Showcase feature will be promoted to hundreds of major news outlets. In addition, the gallery will also be featuring and promoting her artwork in the gallery’s various social media networks for further exposure.
Below are Rita’s Artist Biography, Artist Statement and 5 of her modernist, realist, figurative paintings that were submitted to this competition.
Rita Bartel has been creating art her entire life. Formal training began at the Academy of Art in San Francisco, and helped to foster her early career. She currently belongs to several local artist’s associations as well as a few national/international art societies.
While retirement has afforded her the time to devote to her craft, rich life experience and travel have provided the grist for the mill. Influenced by artists such as Vermeer, Mary Cassatt, Picasso, and Tamara de Lempicka, she has created a body of work which epitomizes her interest in the face, the figure, and their incorporation into the rich landscapes of everyday life.
I am a modernist, realist, figurative painter, and I love to paint scenes from my travels and everyday life which tell a story. I take a subject which I find beautiful or interesting, and paint it in a way that allows the viewer to see it realistically for what it is, with a touch of mystery or style added to emphasize the other forces going on below the surface.
With oils, I accomplish this by using an acrylic underpainting, which I allow to show through in places. In soft pastels, I use watercolor, inks, or alcohol washes for the underpainting. For example in “Three Wise Men”, I used a multicolored geometric pattern as an underpainting to give the viewer an added perspective.
I love to paint my stories, and my goal is to have the viewer enter my world and share in my experiences.
To learn more about Rita Bartel and to see more of her art, please visit her website.
Click the Thumbnail to See the Artwork in a Lightbox
