Glen Bottalico says she began her love affair with art at an early age and has directed that passion into an artistic career that has spanned more than 30 years. Bottalico credits her parents for creating an environment where she felt comfortable expressing herself through the arts, whether via music or with a paint brush.
She is the daughter of Roy and Doris Murray, two creative individuals in their own right.
Her father, an inventor, is credited with inventing a valve actuator apparatus (to open and close a butterfly valve), and her mother, a confectionist, created tasty sculptures out of sweets.
“She was a master with marzipan,” says Bottalico. When asked about her unusual first name, she says she doesn’t know its history, but knows that it’s a name shared with a great-grandmother.
Although born in Manchester, England, Bottalico says “we moved 23 times before I was 18.”
At the age of 3 the family moved from England to Canada, then back to England where at age 14 she studied at the Rochdale College of Art, and eventually to Rhode Island during her high school years.
While in high school, she wrote music and played the acoustic guitar, and after graduating toured New England with a friend in their band, June Apple.
“I was always doing something. I did pottery for a while and always painted and studied with other artists; private sessions. After that, I just kept learning any way I could; books, videos, local artists who had classes. Anything I could get my hands on is what I did,” recalls Bottalico, adding that she also took some classes at Rhode Island College and Rhode Island School of Design.
Bottalico first entered the Vero Beach gallery scene in 1980, moving here to design jewelry for a shop that some friends had opened on Ocean Drive. However, when the shop closed within a year, she was left jobless and decided to return to Rhode Island.
“I was making Pre-Columbian and Egyptian jewelry, which I discovered wasn’t real popular in Vero Beach at that time,” she says.
The lure of Vero Beach soon beckoned her back, though, and she returned within a year.
“There was something magical here, and there was a lot of opportunity for my art,” says Bottalico.
She took a job working at the Ocean Grill, where the murals she painted all those years ago still grace the walls. The cards and prints that she continues to create can be purchased in the Ocean Grill gift shop.
Bottalico soon opened a gallery next to Corey’s Pharmacy on Ocean Drive, and over the past three decades here has had a presence at several locations around town.
She currently relishes the peace and quiet of being off the beaten path at her latest studio gallery in South Vero Beach, and she says that the solitude has given her the opportunity to try new things while continuing to grow as an artist.
While she has tried her hand at a variety of mediums and styles, Bottalico says that her work is firmly rooted in her love of trompe l’oeil, meaning to deceive the eye. The technique relies heavily on realistic imagery to create the optical illusion of objects appearing to exist in three dimensions.
She explains that forced perspective is an illusionistic technique often used in murals that seemingly feature views looking out through windows, doors or hallways. It’s a technique that works perfectly with her preference for working on a large scale with canvas and wood pieces as well as on walls.
Bottalico says she has been commissioned to hand-paint murals and fire screens for department stores, and in the 1980s she became the first artist whose work painted on furniture was juried into the Laguna Beach Festival of Art in California.
A government official once saw her work at an art show in North Carolina and was so impressed with a tropical mural she had painted, seemingly looking out from French doors, that it was purchased by the U.S. government for the American Embassy in Somalia, where it continues to be displayed today.
Bottalico says her medium of preference is acrylics because of their flexibility.
“You can get nice textures; they mix well, and you can add things to them. I can get it to look like water by adding more water. I can get it to look like oils, I can use a palette knife, and I can make it look like oil by adding a nice glaze,” she explains.
Readily admitting that she has a fascination with Master Artists such as Gauguin, Bottalico says she is drawn to their ability to “make one brushstroke do a thousand things. They know exactly where to put a brushstroke to get the perfect effect.”
She considers herself a realist painter – artists who precisely represent their subject matter – and spends a great deal of time getting to know her subject, whether it is a family pet, a child or a still life.
“I spend a lot of time looking at whatever I’m getting ready to paint; looking at the color, researching and getting to know its personality if it’s a pet. My process is really analyzing what I’m going to be doing and looking at exactly what makes the subject who or what they are.”
Bottalico’s studio gallery is open by appointment or by chance; chances are you’ll find her there most weekday afternoons.
For more information, visit bottalicogallery.com.
Photos by Kaila Jones
