Bettina Dickson Rusher

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 Statement

I feel most alive when I’m creating art. I am an abstract expressionist with a love for process, and the unexpected. I often begin with loose, colorful, sometimes chaotic layers, embracing spontaneity.  I love building subtle tension through push and pull, and exploring the soft, blurred edges where colors overlap, harder edges lie and earlier marks linger just beneath the surface. Brushwork and mark-making are important to me, too—I experiment with a variety of tools to create mood and movement. 

Some paintings endure trials and setbacks, passing through slow cycles of building up, tearing down, carving back into the paint and rebuilding again before finally reaching a feeling of resolve.  I strive for raw honesty in my work. 

Inspiration comes from deep emotions, the natural world, and personal experiences that stay with me. I primarily work with oil and acrylic paints, oil sticks, and mixed media.

Bio

From the early age of six, I spent my childhood weekends drawing and painting at the Living Arts and Science Center in Lexington, KY.  In high school I could be found in the school art studio after class, painting for hours on end. On Senior Awards Night at Lafayette High in Lexington, I was honored with the Best Artist Award, from a graduating class of 600. 

I studied fine art, design, and business at Eastern Kentucky University, 1979 - 1984, before building a 30-year career with architectural firms in Kentucky, Virginia, and the San Francisco Bay Area. 

Throughout my corporate career, I never stepped away from creating art—I continued to paint, exhibit, and sell my work. In the 1990s,  I also studied painting, drawing and art history at the San Francisco Art Institute from 1994 - 1996.

I was hired and completed numerous commissioned pieces for clients including Oracle Corporation, Brocade Communications, and the University of Kentucky. 

In 2024, I founded the Contemporary Art Alliance of Georgia. CAAGA is a vibrant group of professional artists in southeast Georgia. In 2025 CAAGA became a 501C3 non-profit. 

My artwork has been represented in galleries in California, Ponte Vedra Beach Florida, Atlanta Georgia, Kentucky and Virginia. I have collaborated with interior designers in Atlanta GA, Florida, Scottsdale AZ and the SF Bay Area. 

My art can be found in private collections in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Wyoming. 

Every piece of my original art comes with a COA, Certificate of Authenticity.

I welcomes the opportunity to design and implement commissioned pieces for homes and corporate spaces.

I also conducts intellectual talks on the American Abstract Movement of the 1940's and 50's and Eric Kandel's Art & Brain Science with Neuro-aesthetics scientist Chase Royer.  Please contact me  for more information.