BIOGRAPHY
Beth Bolgla is a visual artist working and living in New York. She received a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts from Georgia State University in 1978, and worked primarily as a ceramic artist until 1985, when she began painting on canvas. Since 1985 she has continued to paint on canvas and to make ceramic sculptures, some of which are painted with oil rather than glazed. In 1995 she began making drawings using oil pastels on paper.

While living in Atlanta Beth maintained a studio at Nexus Contemporary Arts Center. She received two Artist Project Grants from the Bureau of Cultural Affairs of the City of Atlanta and three grants from the Georgia Council for the Arts, designed and produced a line of terra-cotta kitchenware for Dean and Deluca’s in New York, and completed numerous commissions. In 1988, her work was selected for the "Big Art" billboard competition sponsored by the Arts Festival of Atlanta.

Since moving to New York in 1989, Beth has continued working in the studio on commissions and other work. In 1991 she designed over 75 puppets and masks for an original theatre production on the life of Frida Kahlo, entitled "Frida", that was produced by the American Music Theatre Festival in Philadelphia, the Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and the Houston Opera Company. She participated in the annual Open Studios at 41 Union Square, where her studio was located, from 1991-1998.

Since 1977, Beth has had seven solo exhibitions and has participated in over 20 group exhibitions in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Augusta, Birmingham, Rochester, and Aleppo, Syria. In January of 1995 a painting of Beth’s was included in the exhibition "Augusta Collects" at the Morris Museum of Art in Augusta, Georgia. Following the exhibition the museum purchased the painting. Her first exhibition in New York, in May of 1995 with Susan Loftin at Art 54 Gallery, included paintings, drawings, and ceramic sculpture. In October of 1996, Beth exhibited with Benjamin Jones in a two-person show at Zinc Contemporary Art Gallery in Blue Water, Florida. In April of 1997 and May of 1999 she had one-person exhibitions at Sandler Hudson Gallery in Atlanta, Georgia. In April of 2000, she had a one-person exhibition at Mary Pauline Gallery in Augusta, Georgia.

In March of 2000, Beth was invited by the U.S. State Department in Syria to participate in the "Second International Women’s Art", an exhibition in Aleppo, Syria. She was also invited to conduct workshops for women artists in Damascus and Aleppo and for students at the University of Damascus. After a three-week stay in Syria, she traveled to Saudi Arabia, where she was also invited by the U.S. State Department to conduct workshops for women artists.

Institutions and individuals in California, Connecticut, Georgia, Maine, Maryland, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Aruba, New Zealand, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Syria have collected her work.