“I am entranced by the clouds’ twisting, turbulent, voluminous forms. Cloud shapes have energy – a mercurial, moving changeability. Their edges constantly evaporate in swirling vapor trails which look like charges of electricity. I feel freest when I can see tremendous expanses – one of which is the sky, another the ocean. Mountains often surge and roll – like muscles of the earth, in shapes similar to clouds.”
“Light amazes me. I think it is intensely beautiful. It amazes me that the sun comes up each day and shines. That the entire earth is dependent on it. That all life and warmth spring from it. That the sun and moon slowly circle the sky every night. These are astounding phenomena, really. When one becomes aware of the sun it dominates one’s seeing. Intense light does unusual things to objects – it literally eats away their edges. Tree trunks dissolve, and in New York City, edges of buildings disappear. Windows glare. Again the sun prevails.”
“Painting for me is a reacting, feeling situation where I can feel an interaction between myself and the objects – a circular flow of energy between myself and what I am painting. It is that energy which I think is so important to express because it is what gives life to the painting.”
Biography
Jessie Benton Evans Gray has exhibited extensively in one man and group shows in New York City, all over the northeast, Santa Fe, New Mexico and Arizona. She has been Associate Editor and Art Critic for the New York Arts Journal, and was a feature-writer for Photo News, New York, she hosted a Manhattan Cable Television program, “Personalities with Jessie Gray” (select episode now on YouTube), she hosted a radio interview program of the same name, interviewing such people as news commentator Edwin Newman, broadway director Joshua Logan, heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson, playwright Frank Gilroy, actor Richard Kelley and art collector Robert Scull, to name a few.
Benton Evans Gray grew up on the Arizona desert and in California, learning painting from her great grandmother, a well known regional artist, for whom she was named. She lived in New York City, Santa Fe, New Mexico and Scottsdale, Arizona. She is married to artist Don Gray.
Benton Evans Gray received a B.A. degree from Arizona State University in 1960, and an MFA from the State University of Iowa in 1971.
