*News release for Red Wing Framing Gallery show

Red Wing Framing Gallery harvests the season with Autumn Aire:
An exhibit of fall-themed paintings by oil and pastel artist Bonnita Budysz

Red Wing, Minn.—Artist Bonnita Budysz takes a colorful look at fall. Her paintings of fields, rivers and harvest produce evoke that first crisp morning when the colors pop from the land gold and russet.

Sept. 8 through Oct. 20, Red Wing Framing Gallery will present an exclusive engagement of Budysz’s works. Entitled “Autumn Aire,” the exhibit will collect over 20 of the Wisconsin oil and pastel artist’s vibrant fall landscapes and still lifes.

To premier the exhibit, Budysz will host an on-site painting demonstration, Saturday, Sept. 9, at the Red Wing Framing Gallery. Running 1 to 4 p.m., “Harvest Offerings” will give attendees a chance to meet and interact with an award-winning painter, whose works are collected by the Pasadena Museum of California Art and the Cultural Galleries in Petropavlosvsk, Russia, and to get a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the artist’s technique.

Like her art, Budysz’s life draws inspiration from the land and its seasons. Growing up in Wisconsin’s rural Manitowoc County, she spent summers at her grandfather’s dairy farm, sketching fields and cows herded for milking.

“There was no question in my mind growing up that I was going to be an artist,” said Budysz, who began formal training at the Layton School of Art in Milwaukee.

At the age of 20, she took a career risk and moved to California, where she honed her portrait skills at San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf while working days at a bank. The risk paid off.

It was during her time in California that Budysz encountered Russian Impressionism and was influenced by its emphasis on color, light and vigorous brushwork. Classes at the Palos Verdes Art Center and Sergei Bongart Institute ripened the creative vision that later would bring her to the attention of magazines like American Artist and International Artist.

Twelve years ago, Budysz and her husband Robert returned to Wisconsin. They moved to Twin Rivers, said Budysz, “Because we wanted to simplify and get in touch with a more natural existence. And as a plein air artist, being in nature’s important. Your connection with the wind and the air and the earth, that becomes a part of your painting.”

Installed in a renovated heifer barn, Budysz’s studio recalls the long-ago summers spent on her grandfather’s dairy farm—memories she mines every time she sets off to paint the woods and old farms dotting her slice of rural Wisconsin.

“I love farms and the idea of sustenance that culminates in the harvest,” she said. “It’s an artistic adventure for me and, hopefully, something I’ll be exploring to the end of my days.”
Red Wing Framing Gallery is located in the historic Boxrud Building on Main Street in downtown Red Wing, and specializes in original fine art, custom framing and fine-art printing.

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