Betty White: Moss, Time Made Visible

Presented by Dimensions Gallery

My Roots Are My Branches, handmade mulberry and bark paper, pastel, pencil, gouache, and watercolour. Photo: Betty White

Betty White: Moss, Time Made Visible

October 29 – November 22, 2025
Opening Reception: October 29, 6 – 9pm | RSVP here
Dimensions Gallery, Toronto

“Like moss, my art holds time in suspension. Each painting carries the imprint of my life—work, family, joy, loss—made visible through colour and form. My hope is that viewers don’t just see the work, but feel it.”
– Betty White

Dimensions Gallery presents Moss, Time Made Visible, a captivating exhibition by artist Betty White.

Immerse yourself in Betty’s collection, where art transforms into a vivid tapestry of time and nature. Her work, highlighted by dynamic brushwork and intricate textures, captures the essence of organic growth and the passage of time.

Artist Statement

“My journey as an artist has taken me to many places and through many materials— weaving textiles in Brazil, creating woven sculptures in Montreal, and painting in Toronto. No matter the medium, what has always stayed the same is an unending curiosity and a deep connection to nature. That connection revealed itself in an unexpected way when I began noticing moss in my backyard garden. Though moss has existed on Earth for nearly 475 million years, I only recently realized how deeply it mirrors my own relationship to art. As Robin Wall Kimmerer describes, moss often doesn’t die but instead lingers in a kind of suspended animation—waiting, enduring, carrying life forward.

That image resonated with me. My art, too, feels like time made visible. Each piece carries the imprint of my life: work and family, friendship and loss, joy and sorrow. What I create is not just a record but an extension of my own feelings—undying, layered, resilient. My hope is that when someone stands before my paintings, they don’t need explanation or instruction. Instead, they simply feel. That, to me, is the true purpose of my art and of my life as an artist: to give form to emotion in a way that invites others into it—quietly, honestly, and without words.”
– Betty White

Ode To Jean-Louis Barrault, handmade mulberry and bark paper, pastel, pencil, gouache, and watercolour. Photo: Betty White

About Betty White

Born in the US, Betty studied painting and, for a period, paper making, in a number of cities including Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Boulder (Colorado), Montreal and also Toronto.

Throughout her journey as an artist, Betty has drawn and painted using ink, pencil, pastels, and watercolours, creating art not only on canvas, but also on bark paper, animal skin, cotton, slate, and even pages and documents from old books. In addition to painting, she has taught art to teachers at the Boston Children’s Museum and at two schools in Toronto, where she inspired, and was inspired by, her young charges.

Since 1973, Betty has participated in group and solo shows in Europe (Paris and Les Mesnuls, France), Mexico (San Miguel de Allende), the USA (Martha’s Vineyard and Boston), and here in Canada (Montreal and Toronto). Her paintings can be found in collections held by Reader’s Digest, Triax Capital Management, the Toronto Metropolitan University, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Sales and Rentals Department of the AGO, and private individuals in North America, Europe, and New Zealand.

Art historian Rebekah Smick once described Betty’s work as powerful visual poetry, using the following words: (it is) “so completely intuitive and … confidently at peace with its own artistic project;” (it shows a) “deeply physical appreciation of the organic world and its offering of possible media;” (and expresses) “themes of intimacy and personal experience – the gathering of family, the satisfaction of significant friends, the mystery of faces, the claims of motherhood, the varieties of love, the profundities of loss.”

Antonio, handmade mulberry and bark paper, pastel, pencil, gouache, and watercolour. Photo: Betty White

About Dimensions Gallery

Dimensions Gallery is a celebration of artwork. Situated in West Beaches, the gallery has become one of the city’s most reputable places for custom framing, and a celebrated showcase for artwork from all genres. This fresh, expansive space is the collaborative product of Ellen Davidson and Wendy Palmer, who have been in business together for 24 years.

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