BETHANY PIERCE
Inevitably my perfectly composed still life arrangements fall apart.
The ice cream melts, the donuts mold, the cakes calcify.
I'm learning to paint these deteriorations as they appear. The decay can have its own kind of haunting beauty.
-Bethany Pierce
Bethany Pierce, Powdered and Glazed, 2020, oil , 6 x 6 inches
Bethany Pierce’s still life paintings of desserts are painted from nature. Baked goods and sugar glazes “make capricious models” and Pierce notes “beneath the spotlights, they spill and slip and lean, forcing me to work with equal parts spontaneity and deliberation.”
In Powdered & Glazed, a stack of two doughnuts appear to be melting on to the tabletop whose edge in slight shadow is parallel to the picture plane. Different surfaces are built up through thin layers of oil paint from glowing red translucent jelly to opaque white glaze. As in the works of Emily Eveleth, the doughnuts suggest comparisons to the human body and in spite of the intimate scale of the painting appear monumental. In Pierce’s work, details such as vestiges of red filling on the tablecloth lend a sense of immediacy to the otherwise quiet scene, like a rush of sugar hitting the bloodstream.
The two doughnuts, one whole and the other half-consumed evoke complex emotional states that food, and sweet food in particular convey:
“Desserts have nothing to do with sustenance and everything to do with how we feel or want to feel. We eat them to celebrate birthdays and weddings. We bake them to express love; we buy them to indulge. They soothe our broken hearts, even as they invite guilt and glut."
Artist Bio
Bethany Pierce received her BFA in painting from Miami University of Ohio. While staying a fifth year to complete a master's degree in creative writing, she published her debut novel Feeling for Bones, which Publishers Weekly named one of the top books of 2007. Her second work of fiction, Amy Inspired, followed in 2010. Bethany lives in Asheville, North Carolina where she continues to paint and write, her dog Lucy by her side.
Bethany Pierce
Former GreenHill colleague Lauren Davis Gordon wrote to us about a favorite painting by Bethany Pierce in her collection.
"The painting Happy by Bethany Pierce was a gift from many of my friends at GreenHill. The painting hangs proudly right beside my seat at the dining room table. I look at it every night at dinner and everytime I walk into the kitchen (which in our current situation, is about every 30 minutes to get my children a snack).
Happy is so well done, and the subject is something that provides me with a multitude of good feelings. From the first time I saw it hanging in the gallery, I fell in love; it gave me that fuzzy feeling inside, aka nostalgia; instantly memories of past family birthday celebrations came to mind, just like the actual taste of a white birthday cake with sprinkles does for me. Pierce is so talented, and I love her style and color choices. After Edie hung it on the wall at GreenHIll, it was just one of those paintings I just could not stop looking at - it made me, well, happy. I'd take a break and just walk into the gallery to look at it and smile. Every person who came into the gallery looking to buy art, I would show them her work. That's one of the many things I love about art - you can collect work and surround yourself with things that make you feel however you want to feel. Plus, it's helpful to be prepared with art you love in the event of being quarantined at home during a pandemic.
Recently I celebrated a birthday in the very exciting social distancing/Covid manner. As I'm reflecting on this piece now, it does make me have a new appreciation of the past. It's something we've all probably thought about a lot recently, to not take our future hugs and celebrations with family and friends for granted. Until things are back to "normal," stay safe, and we will soon be together again to have our cake and eat it too! (In the meantime, there's no shame in eating cake alone...at least that's what I'm telling myself.)"