Alice Webb - Biography

Biography

I grew up in Fort Worth, Texas near the museum district. As a child I was fortunate enough to be exposed to all the arts - visual art, theater, literature, and music of all genres. It was at a very early age that I knew I would be an artist and I was blessed with a mother who shared my vision and encouraged me to paint, draw and write poetry. While still in junior high I began to show and sell my paintings, prints and drawings at local art fairs. In high school I won a scholarship to study oil painting at the Fort Worth Museum of Modern Art. After graduating from high school, I attended the University of Texas before moving to the artist mecca of Taos, New Mexico.

During my first years in Taos I designed and made jewelry, studied tapestry weaving, created fiber sculpture, wrote poetry and continued to hone my drawing skills. It was also during those years that I also began to teach art. By the late seventies I decided to return to painting. My teachers were not only the famous local landscape painters, Alyce Frank and Barbara Zaring that I painted with every week, or Fritz Scholder that I studied with, but also the early Taos Art Society Founders whose works I learned from. I read Robert Henri’s “The Art Spirit” and stood painting the same scenes that Joseph Sharp and Herbert Dunton had painted. I studied the French Impressionists and the Fauves, the Cubists and then finally the Abstract Expressionists. By the late eighties I was ready to return to school.

In 1990 I moved to Albuquerque to attend the University of New Mexico. By that time, I had already been showing my work nationally and had exhibited with several of my professors. My main goal in getting a BFA was to fill in the gaps in my knowledge of Art History. I took a break from the heightened color and landscapes I had become known for and explored the thousands of shades of black and white in non-objective works. I graduated with honors in 1993. I had planned to work on a Master’s in Fine Art, but my youngest son who was three at the time was diagnosed with autism so I chose a path that would allow me to care for him and stay involved in art. I applied for the Master of Art Education program and graduated, again with honors in 2003.
After earning my MA in Art Education I taught for Albuquerque Public Schools for sixteen years as well as teaching in the Art Ed Department at UNM. I retired from the public schools in December of 2018 but continue to teach at UNM as well as the New Mexico Art League. Over my career as an art instructor, I have taught art to people between the ages of three and eighty-three in many profit and non-profit venues in Albuquerque and Santa Fe. I am a two-time Golden Apple Distinguished Teacher winner and in 2016 I was named an Albuquerque Local Treasure. I have painted the Southwest for over forty years. My work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is in numerous public, private and corporate collections.

Artist Statement

The graceful or wild lines that create a mountain or a river; the contrast in light and shadow; all the simple, complex, natural and man-made shapes that make up the landscape excite me. I am particularly interested in the Southwest because of its fierce beauty. Occasionally I yield to abstract influences, but there always remains a reference to the landscape or natural world. In my landscapes, I first must find the composition of the painting. I may reimagine the scene when I draw the contours of the physical structures. As Gauguin said, "I close my eyes in order to see." At this point, I surrender to the process and allow my "I" to get out of the way. This is why I paint - to reach that meditative state where the painting takes on a life of its own.