the stark red barn rests under a hazy cloud-wisped sky in the Vermont countryside.
Electric pink of a bouquet of heirloom peonies seems to burst off the paper in lifelike splendor. Greens, blues and purples coagulate and tumble in a dizzyingly abstract composition.
As a lover of vibrant color, Bev Mathis is able to break out of the stereotypical using watercolor paints. This isn’t the washed-out watery look that often is associated with the medium.
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“It’s a clearer, cleaner color. It can be very intense, bright color. And I like the process — you can layer it. To me, it’s almost like painting with colored light,” she said. “People think it has to be watery and light and really soft. It doesn’t.”
Mathis’ wide array of styles and subject matter will be on display throughout the month of September at the Southside Art League’s Off Broadway Gallery. The exhibition includes everything from esoteric abstract paintings to landscapes of Indiana barns to still-lifes of fruit or floral arrangements.
Selections include whimsically colored animals, portraits of Santa Claus and pastoral natural scenes.
For her, the hope is to stir something in people’s own life.
“I hope they can connect with every painting on some level, and maybe bring back a memory,” she said. “I hear that a lot, that they’re reminded of something they did as a child, or they have a garden and these flowers are the ones I have in my garden.”
As a student at Otis E. Brown School 20 in Indianapolis, Mathis was inspired to be creative by her own art teacher.
“At the time, I thought that everybody had an art teacher like I did. She was just amazing, and I didn’t realize until talking to other people,” she said. “She was kind of my inspiration.”
She earned a scholarship to Herron School of Art, finished her degree and planned to go into teaching art herself. After five years at Keystone Middle School in Indianapolis, she opted to raise her family, dabbling in oil painting, crafts and other art when she could.
But as her 40th birthday approached, Mathis wanted to give herself a gift.
“I always wanted to learn watercolor. It’s always attracted me because of the cleaner colors. It’s not as heavy and dark-looking as oil,” she said. “I was going to give myself a present and take watercolor classes.”
At the time, artist David Tipton was the watercolor instructor at the Southside Art League. So Mathis signed up for his course, learning the technique and potential that the medium offered.
Other painting, such as oils, acrylic and pastel, all allow the artist to layer light colors over dark colors. Oil painting you can even wipe away if you don’t like the way it looks when it’s wet. You can still change your mind if want, Mathis said.
Watercolor isn’t as forgiving.
“It’s transparent. So the lights you have to save from the very beginning. You can paint around them, but you really have to plan how you’re going to do it,” she said.
Still, Mathis absolutely fell in love with its versatility, she said.
“I love all of it. I know there are some artists that paint one thing over and over and over. That would drive me crazy. Once you’ve explored it, I don’t want to do it forever,” she said.
Her passion for watercolor was so much that when Tipton died in 1996, she was called on to finish teaching his classes at the Southside Art League. She’s been doing it ever since.
One of the most rewarding parts of teaching is watching their own creativity fall into place.
“When you see the smile on their face, you know they’ve got it. You can see it click,” she said. “I hear some sad stories from people when they come to my class, other art teachers or people when they were younger telling them they couldn’t do this. But they still want to do this.”
In addition to being a member of the Southside Art League, Mathis is also a Cardinal Fellow of the Watercolor Society of Indiana, the Indiana Artists Club and the Brown County Art Gallery Artists Association. She has won awards in those organizations’ exhibits, as well as at the Indiana State Fair, Hoosier Salon and the Greater Greenwood Art Council’s Art for the Ages, among many others.
This exhibition will be her first solo show at the Southside Art League in six years, so all of the pieces included in it will be newer artwork that hasn’t been included in those previous shows, she said.
“There’s going to be a little bit of everything,” she said.
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Beverly Mathis exhibition
When: Through Sept. 28
Where: Southside Art League Off Broadway Gallery, 299 E. Broadway St., Greenwood
Hours: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday
Reception: Mathis will share information about her art from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. Sunday at the gallery. Light refreshments will be served.
Information: southsideartleague.org
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