Bayly Lay

LEGRANDE, OR

It began in the mountains. Ridgelines scribbled on the back of waiting room napkins, college notebooks filled with peaks and valleys. Bayly may have grown up in her mother’s studio, surrounded by foxes, horses, and cadmium red, but it was the landscapes around her that forced her hand to pick up a paintbrush. Now she finds those lines in every piece she finishes; rocky angles in the softest curves, a moving geometry alive within the shifting winds of her work. Bayly’s paintings thrum with the history of her homeland, the mountains of the West, the foundation upon which the most delicate creature can make its gesture. It is this harmony between the patient roots of landscape and the break of a horse let loose that gives such complexity and spirit to her style, both bravehearted and deeply grounded. Bayly works primarily in oil pigment, but found her beginning in charcoal and poetry, both of which frequently find their way into her creative expression to this day. A striking boldness, an unorthodox approach, and a true sense of emotion are all central characteristics of this young artist.