Today we’d like to introduce you to Rocky Bettis.
Hi Rocky, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I was born in Chicago into a family with members who expressed themselves through sports on one side and through the creative arts on another. So you might say I inherited the persistent resilience of athletes combined with the inspired imagination of creative artists. Recently in conversations with one of my partners, I’ve been remembering how I used to sit with my grandfather and look through old photo albums while he told me the stories behind the pictures. Now, I’m thinking that might have something to do with why my creative expressiveness took the form of painting images.
Growing up in a major cultural arts center like Chicago and making the move with my family to Los Angeles when I was a teenager probably played a big part as well. But for whatever reason, it was in Savannah, Georgia, around 2009 that something clicked and made me begin to independently study and produce art.
I’ve talked before about the impact the statues of classic artists outside the Telfair Museum had on me, but almost the entire downtown historic district of Savannah with its unique squares, fountains, and architecture, is like a work of inspiring art. That’s kind of how I see it anyway.
In my independent studies, I was really drawn to works by Pablo Picasso, Paul Cezanne, and John Singer Sargent. Almost all the classic painters actually. Their influence might be obvious in some of my canvases, though I try to use what I’ve learned to develop my own style. I look for ways to paint what I feel might be beneath the surface of a subject combined with the surface appearance.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I like to think of the road of my life leading up to this point as being an extremely interesting one. That includes recently surviving hurricane Helene and reflecting on whether or not I’m doing enough with my art to highlight the urgency of the climate crisis.
While previously relocating from one city to another, I’ve basically been forced to learn as I traveled. The thing about being a curious adventure-seeking kid growing up in major urban centers like Chicago and L.A. is that sometimes you find what you think you wanted, and then discover what you thought you wanted wasn’t so good for you. So for the time being, let’s just say I’ve fought my share of battles with personal demons. There were moments when I almost lost, but the right angel came along at the right time and helped me get back on track.
The biggest challenge over the past decade has been one that many independent artists who are not affiliated with an academic or corporate institution have to deal with. Which is staying gainfully employed while also pursuing your creative ambitions, or following your bliss as I heard somebody put it. This is actually another area where I got lucky because I was able to maintain employment in the food service industry while sometimes exhibiting paintings in the restaurant where I was employed. An excellent example of this was my exhibit at Noble Fare in 2023.
That kind of match-up hasn’t been so easy with other work situations but one big bonus I’ve always been able to take advantage of is re-purposing discarded items to use as canvases, or integrate into art projects in other ways. Even things like old cutting boards or wooden panels used to reinforce shipping crates. With everything going on when it comes to environmental integrity and ecological sustainability, recovering recyclable items and making the best use of them is important to me. How to make all of that make sense in the wake of climate disasters like hurricane Helene and the challenge AI poses for a painter like me, who believes preserving what I call The Human Touch, gets us into a bigger story I think.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I recently set up shop on Fine Art America.com, Pixels.com, and Society 6. Some very supportive artists on FAA and Pixels in particular have shared deeply moving comments about my portrait paintings and how they feel the work captures the essence of the subjects. My images on the site at present range from a charging bull and glowing giraffe, to a worn out fighter and portraits of women in different states of reflection. As a man, I really treasure the approving comments from women artists who find value in my portraits of women, or possibly see something of themselves in the artwork. I mean, that’s really special for any of my paintings but I never want to give the impression that my work portraying women is exploitative in any way. I hope my paintings at least hint at some meaningful story in a life behind each image.
When it comes to what sets me apart from others as a contemporary millennial artist, I would say partly it’s my tribute portraits to classic artists. Also, I do sometimes accept commissioned requests to duplicate certain classic paintings in the public domain but what I more often prefer to do is borrow characters from different timeless paintings and work with them in my own way. Give them a new visual narrative so to speak. I also like to create my own interpretations of particular famous paintings, like one called A Modern Philosopher Meditates on Rembrandt (now available on FAA), which is my reimagining of a 1632 painting by Rembrandt van Rijn originally called “Philosopher in Meditation.”
What makes me proud is having become an artist even though it’s not something I ever imagined I could be become in any serious way. In truth I still have problems sometimes accepting that the word “artist” applies to me. Yet I am now approaching my tenth year of exhibiting works in the historic district of downtown Savannah, and I do have new online art stores on the sites I already mentioned. In addition to all that, I’ve been invited to join a proposed museum group project that mixes different forms of visual art with poetic writing prompts. That invite came completely out of the blue and I don’t know how it’s all going turn out, but just the fact that I received it makes me feel really honored.
On top of everything else, I was blown away when a Savannah writer wrote one story about my work called “An Encounter with Artist Paul Cezanne in Downtown Savannah” during the pandemic in 2020, and then another one in 2024 called “Shakespeare’s Face Reinterpreted The Second Coming of Rocky Bettis.” That would probably be enough to convince anyone else that they’re an artist, but my guess is I’m always going to be working at earning the right to call myself that.
Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
Can’t say I’m any kind of expert on risk-taking but I do believe any creative person interested in growing as an artist has to take risks when it comes to how they approach their craft, and maybe how they approach life in general. It’s hard to develop confidence in your own abilities if you don’t trust yourself enough to experiment with things like techniques, form, and subject matter. Or to just act on the inspiration of a moment and see where it takes you.
In a way, just daring to trust in my creative instincts without formal academic training is a big risk. That’s not just because of possibly overlooking any areas of technical importance while studying independently, but because of missing out on connections to the cultural arts industry that can help you get a solid start in your career. In fact, probably the biggest risks I’ve taken have been going all in on different projects to the point that I almost jeopardized my primary source of livelihood because I was so focused on an art project. There was no guarantee the project was going to boost my career so much that I would be able to work full-time as independent artist but the opportunity to realize a goal like that isn’t something I can ignore. I always feel like the possibility of a major breakthrough is there.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://pixels.com/profiles/1-rocky-bettis/shop and https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/1-rocky-bettis/shop
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rockybettis81/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rocky-bettis-087791292
- Other: https://society6.com/rocky-bettis-art-gallery
