Tom Betts is a hyperrealist oil painter whose works represent thoughtful interpretations of natural and nurtured visual metaphors, focusing on linguistic symbolism. From early cave paintings to cuneiform scripts, silhouettes of formative human cognition brought understanding and history to budding civilizations with desire to pass along contextual and communal relevance, forever inspiring Betts’ artistic process representing simple and often fragile vessels experiencing the most ephemeral of contemporary elements. As this tension is built and frozen in time, a vigorous analysis takes place in the form of painted layers of varying level of transparency, tone, viscosity, and color. Hours lead to months of deconstructed light filtered through oil, and the life and hand of a painter who wishes the world a pause in its path of beauty to breathe in the confidence of the unknown, once lost to time.
“Epiphany is the reflection of holding one’s historical breath, even if it is just for a moment.”
As monumental history, that could stand the test of time, compacts fragile history that could not, find your forgotten language within Betts’ art.
His work has been featured in American Art Collector, 65° Magazine, Southwest Art Magazine, Artists Network, and Park City Mountain Morning News; and has been seen in exhibitions at Bennington Center for the Arts, Palm Springs Fine Art Fair, and the Museu del Tabac in Andorra.
Betts received his BFA and MFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of Utah. His work is represented by Thomas Anthony Gallery in Park City, Dawson Cole Fine Art in Carmel, and Plus One Gallery in London.