Apes & Landscapes

The opening reception of studio partners Nancy Becker and Frank Armitage’s show ‘Apes & Landscapes’ was held at Studios on the Park on Friday, February 20th. Apes and Landscapes is an exhibit of new works by the artists that reveals their different approaches to yet shared love of artistic creation. Armitage, a muralist, painter, and draftsman, experimented with various media including oil stick, charcoal and acrylic in his depiction of gorillas and chimpanzees. Becker’s lyrical landscapes feature her interpretations of San Miguel, its buildings, and the surrounding countryside.

The show will be up in Studios on the Park through March 7th. Studios is located at 1130 Pine Street in historic downtown Paso Robles. Hours are noon to 6 p.m. Thursday through Sunday. Info: studiosonthepark.org or 805.238.9800.

Nancy's Story

Nancy Becker was born in San Diego, California and grew up in Pasadena, California. Her experiences horseback riding through the Los Angeles National Forest allowed her to explore and enhance her innate passion for nature and animals. This zeal for the outdoors spills over into Nancy’s creative expression and is echoed in her work today. Nancy left Pasadena To attend the University of Colorado and graduated with a B.A. in Art. She returned to California and taught at the elementary and middle school level for eight years and went on to receive her B.F.A. from California College of the Arts in Oakland, California in Graphic Design.

Nancy began painting with watercolors in the early 1990s. While exploring painting and its mediums she transitioned to oil painting for its ability to more deeply communicate with her audience. Consequentially, Nancy’s expressive landscapes reveal her intimate love of the outdoors and lifelong devotion to art and painting. Nancy has consistently studied with respected living and deceased artists such as wildldlife artist Bob Kuhn and landscape painters Clyde Aspevig, Skip Whitcomb, Ann Templeton, Scott Christensen and Michael Workman.

Artistic Philosophy & Inspiration

Nancy Becker is a landscape painter whose use of color, texture and light captures the tranquility and mysteriousness of California’s sacred spaces of nature and the animals that inhabit them. Her tonal paintings of the Central Coast’s ranches, vineyards, and rolling hills create a mood that is mystifying and compelling, and dreamlike in its softness. These rural landscapes are subtle yet powerful, evoking strong emotions in those who experience their silent wonder. It is the expression of her own emotion through her art that lends her work the ability to take its viewers into the very midst of nature’s intimate venues. To view Nancy Becker’s paintings is to spend a quiet moment in a serene locale, where life’s rough edges are somehow absorbed.

Nancy enjoys the process of painting – the approach to the subject and the gradual building of layers on the canvas – and the evolution of a piece from a concept to a successful portrayal of atmosphere and mood. Nancy reveres the way in which incorporates her ardor for self-expression, sharing, connecting, loving, caring, and bringing beauty to others in her own, unique way. She delights in the elusive, phantom-like nature of art that challenges her to continue her journey through painting. She treasures this devotion to art as it has motivated a life that seeks after beauty and allows her to make a career of that which she loves.