Peyton Scott Russell & Beth Sievers

April 2 - May 20, 2022

Visit the free Opening Reception and meet the artists on Saturday, April 2nd 5-7pm.

About the Artists:

Peyton Scott Russell
Process of Elimination  

Exploring the abstract aesthetics of graffiti art, and the elimination of it, on canvas.    

I enjoy looking at public walls that have been painted repeatedly with mismatched paint to cover unwanted graffiti markings. We call this “The Buff”, a term coined in the 1983 documentary film, Style Wars (Tony Silver and Henry Chalfant). i find this resembles abstract paintings by artists like Hofmann, Rothko, Newman, Reinhardt, and Still. The flat simple shapes in what appears to be random placements are dictated by where graffiti tags used to be is a dialogue between Graffiti Writers and city workers/property owners/vigilantes. 

As a practicing graffiti artist of 35+ years, The Buff idea has taken me back to studying my favorite fine art movement - Abstract Expressionism. By using concepts of The Buff, i feel i can participate within the abstract movement and continue practicing the craft of graffiti as a personal collaboration. The Buff is another form of graffiti marking adding to the overall contemporary language of graffiti culture and its history. This language is created by the action of graffiti writing and the action of erasing or removing it - highlighting the push and pull dynamic of human interaction with surfaces. 

Beth Sievers is a self-guided artist who transitioned from working in stained-glass to becoming an encaustic artist. She first discovered encaustic painting in 2010.  She fell in love with the medium of encaustic art the moment she came across it. Her nature-inspired creations often adorn locally salvaged wood. Creating on unusual substrate allows her to take inspiration from her canvas. Her art is part of an ancient tradition that developed on the banks of the Mediterranean in Egyptian, Greek, and Roman culture. Working with a warmed mixture of beeswax, tree resin, and pigment, she manipulates her medium with a torch and sometimes will even set the entire painting ablaze. 

Beth Sievers has a Master’s degree in nursing and currently works at Mayo Clinic Hospital Rochester as a Clinical Nurse Specialist. She finds her compassionate care of patients fuels a creative spirit geared towards creating art as a healing practice. She is pleased to have created an artistic family with her husband and two daughters. 

Beth is a current member of Threshold Arts and curates the 125 Live art gallery spaces.