About Bredt Handy
Bredt Handy is an abstract painter exploring metaphors from the natural world.
Improv triptych at Till Art Gallery
My paintings begin with my observations of the natural world, for example, a surprising combination of colors, or the way light hits a tree branch. Through the physical act of painting, mixing and applying color, I incorporate my thoughts, memories, and emotional responses to a visual memory or observation. The painting emerges imbued with my emotional and intellectual state at the time of painting. A painting that takes days, weeks, months to complete might reveal my shifting states in layers.
When considering titles, I draw upon my interest in language, poetry, word play, and my train of thought to suggest the associations that the images have for me. However, I like when the titles of my paintings evoke a personal response from the viewer.
Bredt Handy studied studio art with a focus on printmaking, art history, and English at Oberlin College. Her interest in art and English led her to book arts, and then publishing. She apprenticed to letterpress printer Peter Koch of Black Stone Press; studied bookbinding in Bristol, England; and worked as a bookbinder and conservator in Portland, Oregon and Boston. She was the Editorial/Production Manager at MIT Press Journals and an art editor at Houghton Mifflin and freelance for other local educational publishers.
She has taken classes at the Cambridge School for Adult Education, Rugg Road, Mass College of Art, and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. Bredt turned to abstract painting when she took classes at the de Cordova Museum School. She studied with Elizabeth DaCosta Ahern until 2020.