We were thrilled to host accomplished Chromascape artist Beki Borman at our May 23, 2023 meeting. Beki is a Milwaukee native and studied Painting at MIAD. Beki now operates her own studio in Waukesha where she holds workshops and teaches classes.
Dabbling in all 2D mediums, Beki’s painting journey landed her mainly in acrylics. Her knife-painting technique actually started with oils. Switching to acrylics, she had to adjust to work quickly. But Beki soon noticed the layering she could accomplish with acrylics. Beki’s been specializing in acrylics for 10 years now.
It was refreshing to hear how unintimidated Beki is as she dives in to a new work. Beki doesn’t limit herself to any one size canvas and loves to begin with red/orange underpainting and placing complimentary colors atop. The core philosophy of all abstract art is the composition of shapes and colors. Her approach to abstract lies under the guise of landscape, which provides the structure to her composition. Chromascapes, as Beki calls her latest works, focus on color relationships within the subject of landscape. Beki emphasized that she spends a significant amount of time “drawing” the horizon on the canvas. Four colors (red, blue, yellow and white) compose Beki’s simple paint palette, sometimes moving and mixing the paint directly upon the canvas. Guild members were captivated as Beki demonstrated her paint mixing and knife application techniques, drawing all of us in to her artistic process of creating a Chromascape.
