Paintings by Elaine Badgley-Arnoux

November 1–December 15
CIIS Minna Street Center,
Second Floor

Reception and Slide Presentation
Friday, November 10, 7–9 pm
CIIS Minna Street Center, Second Floor

Elaine Badgley-Arnoux has been an artist for more than 50 years. Her artistic journey has led her to live in many countries, where she studied the culture, the landscape, and the art of each place. Badgley-Arnoux was deeply affected by her time in Madrid, Spain, where she discovered the aquatints and paintings of Francisco Goya. The imagery of the Black Goyas would stay with her and later influence her art as she worked with the homeless and also when she began her etchings of Abu Gharib, the U.S. military prison in Iraq exposed for its abuse of prisoners. Her early paintings and prints often portrayed attitudes of women, still lifes, abstract landscapes, and large-scale portraits of communities.

Badgley-Arnoux's work changed abruptly in 1989 when her small art school moved south of Market Street in San Francisco. It was there that her social consciousness influenced her most dramatic and vital work—large narrative canvases reflecting the political, moral, and environmental issues of our era. Informed by Goya's desire to depict the atrocities of the Spanish Civil War, Badgley-Arnoux protests the shame of Abu Gharib through art.

Return to Spirit in the Arts main page