Donna Bates

Art and being a creative have always dominated Her life. She started drawing as soon as she could pick up a pencil and as with so many creative people, she wanted to do it all. Although art was always her driving force, she started playing drums when she was 16 and played in numerous bands. Touring Viet Nam in a USO Show during the war with an all-girl band to playing with bands in the early LA Punk scene in the late 70's and early 80's. She then transitioned into computers in the early '90s, being one of very few women who entered the male-dominated 3d Animation/VFX field and went on to be one of the only women to teach CG Modeling at Gnomon School of VFX.
In the last three years she has participated in numerous shows, including "Women Painting Women", "In the Mix" and "Women Painting Women\ Men Painting Men: Voices With Vision" Shows at RJD Gallery in the Hamptons. Where she was also featured in an article with front page photo for the "Women Painting Women\ Men Painting Men: Voices With Vision" in the Sag Harbor Press.
Three of her works were in the “Woman as Warrior” show at Zhou B Art Center in Chicago curated by Poets Artists Magazine.
In 2018 she had two paintings used on Season 3 of HBO’s “Insecure” and had a solo show "Courageous Beauty" at Gabba Gallery in Los Angeles, CA.
She has also been featured in Poets Artists Magazine’s “Figurative Painters of 2016”, “Male Muse”, “The Portrait”, “The New Feminist”, “Woman as Warrior” and “50 Great Figurative Artworks of 2017” issues. At the beginning of 2018 she had a six-page spread in Poets Artists Magazine’s “PA 10 Year Anniversary” issue and was also featured in Poets Artists Magazine’s “Visions of Venus” issue and exhibit at Zhou B Art Center, curated by Dr. Elaine Schmidt of the Bennett Collection while simultaneously showing at the Pop+X booth at Art Vancouver.
In more press, she and her work were the subject of a large article in Klassik International Magazine.
In 2018 she was one of the artists featured in the “Painting the Figure Now” exhibit at the Wausau Museum of Contemporary Art.
She also participated in a four woman show “Life in This Ocean” at the Annenberg Beach House in September 2018. Her paintings were also used on the cover of Argonaut Magazine and inside article about "LIfe In This Ocean".

* This statement has been provided directly by the artist in association to their 14^th International ARC Salon entries. This content has not been edited for typos or grammatical errors and has not been vetted for accuracy.