Betsie Miller-Kusz

Betsie Miller-Kusz lives and works in the Jemez Valley, after many years exhibiting nationally and internationally. Born in Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project, she grew up in the Midwest, then lived and painted many years in San Francisco. She has held exhibitions in Paris, London,
Valencia, Madrid, Rome, Florence, Assisi, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Merida, Guadalajara, Guatemala, New Delhi, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Macau, Leningrad, Ulaan Bataar, Seoul, San Francisco, New York and Santa Fe.
She has painted numerous public murals, collaborating with international artists in conferences and cultural exchanges. Her recent projects include restoration of the 3500 sq. ft. mural at the Mission Cultural Center, San Francisco, the exhibition Retrofit, San Francisco, 2019, a T.I.M.E sculpture in Los Alamos, Summer 2019,
and a solo exhibition “Conduit” in the Step Up Gallery in 2020. She is currently preparing two mural restorations in San Francisco for 2021-2022. For many years, Betsie’s painted imagery has included an earth guardian figure, who is usually female. This being is an emissary between dimensions, an ancient
spirit appearing through the movement of the artists’ brush. She steps through earth’s elements, and floats in its waters. During the pandemic, she (or sometimes he) has been bounded by cylinder constructions, tubes representing our collective isolation, as the boundaries of the world have dissolved visually. Betsie works on unprimed canvas, applying many layers of color to evoke these images spontaneously.