About/Statement

Bethany Windham Engle


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Bethany Windham Engle's observation and contemplation of nature is expressed through wide range of subject matter, including portraits, still lifes, and land, city and seascapes. She states, “Photography, painting, and the intimacy of drawing give me a sense of being connected to the living world. Therefore, I choose to portray the beauty found in nature and the most loving of creatures: the dog.

She integrates her early interest in abstraction, her delight in nature, and her world view into paintings and drawings. Each piece is first conceived abstractly in terms of form, composition, value and mood. Through transforming the subject beyond its purely physical color, size and appearance she creates a semblance, an apparition, one in which spatial relations become perceptible. Thus the work is presented for the viewer to contemplate the interdependency of elements which project the rhythmic process of growth: the relationships necessary to sustain life.

Engle graduated from Stephens College, where she was recommended by her teacher, the sculptor Ted Kraynik, as one of eight students selected from a student body of 2000, to spend a summer in Florence, Italy, studying art. She holds the Bachelor of Fine Art, Master and Doctoral degrees from the University of Alabama where she began her teaching career at the age of 22. Dr. Engle also taught at the University of West Alabama, Beville State Community College, Stillman College and Shelton State Community College.

During the 1960's she was a member of a team of music and art instructors who began the integration of the Tuscaloosa County School System. Later in the decade she was instrumental in the design of an experimental program of art education at the University of Alabama. In 1972, when the Federal Court ordered Alabama's mental heath system to institute treatment of patients, she chaired several programs at Bryce Hospital in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Engle was one of the founding faculty of Shelton State Community College which has been designated by the Alabama Legislature by joint resolution as The Alabama Junior College of Fine Arts. She chaired the Humanities Division during the accreditation procedure and also chaired the first catalog committee that designed the degree program and course descriptions of the new college. She also wrote the art curriculum and course description for all of Alabama's two-year colleges. Until her retirement, Dr. Engle was Head of the Department of Art at Shelton State

Dr. Engle and her husband, the late sculptor Frank L. Engle (see his bio on link below), lived and worked in Italy. Their travels also include Mexico and Cuba, as well as Great Britain, Scandinavia and the European Continent. She and Frank often collaborated on art works and architectural design.

Retired from teaching, she now spends her time caring for her rescued dogs and cats and working in her Windy Hill Studios, located in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama. A member of the Colored Pencil Society of America, Engle’s drawings have been widely exhibited in international competitions. Her commissions and participation in many regional, state and local art contest have resulted in her paintings and drawings being in many private collections. Engle opens her Gazette Gallery to personally welcome visitors during Art Night, which takes place the first Thursday of each month in downtown Northport, Alabama. Her work may also be seen at her Windy Hill Studios, located on Romulus Road, Tuscaloosa County, Alabama and the following galleries, publications and web sites.

Galleries:

Littlehouse Galleries, Birmingham, Alabama

Gallery On The Boulevard, Tuscaloosa, Alabama

Gazette Gallery, Northport, Alabama

Publications:

CPSA To The Point,

Strokes of Genius; The Best of Drawing

Best of Worldwide Artists Charcoal, Pastel and Pencil,

Best of Worldwide Landscape Artists

Best of America Watermedia Artists

Art Galleries and Artists of the South, Vol. 3, Issue 2

Art Galleries and Artists of the South, Vol. 4, Issue 2