After studying fine art at Columbus State University in the late 1980s, Betsy Jones McDonald started her career in commercial arts, painting signs and designing logos before becoming a mural artist in the early 1990s. Over the next decade, she was commissioned to paint murals for residential clients and various schools throughout Columbia, South Carolina.

It was a move to Cincinnati, Ohio, in 2000 that reignited McDonald’s passion for fine art, inspiring her to immerse herself in the rich hues and deep pigments of her oil paints. Three years later, she relocated to Pawleys Island, South Carolina, where she began translating the Lowcountry landscape around her into paintings.

Finding her muse in the natural world, McDonald captures the shrouds of mist over the marshes at sunrise and the vibrancy of sunsets along the coastline, working in impressionistic realism to capture movement and mood. “I have always been fascinated by oils and love to use them in a playful way,” she says. “I want the viewer to feel the excitement that I feel while painting. I consider color and movement to be very important in a painting.”

Her award-winning work has been exhibited in galleries and solo shows throughout the Southeast. She is currently represented by Lowcountry Artists Gallery in Charleston, MISC Gallery and Brookgreen Gardens in Murrells Inlet, and Perspective Gallery in Mount Pleasant.