Bianca Beck grew up around an 8-foot-tall portrait of their mom, unlimited Pepsi and a near-unlimited supply of art supplies. 

“I had free access to the studio, the paints, the brushes and scrap wood as well as the tools in our basement; nails, hammers, saws, the sewing machine, the video recorder, the camera,” Bianca Beck said. “I also had free access to TV, junk food and Pepsi.”

Bianca Beck, who uses they/them pronouns, started their own art journey with a painted pig, made at age 4. Last week, Bianca Beck contributed one of their latest artworks as the 89th addition to the Martin H. Bush Outdoor Sculpture collection, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Ulrich Museum of Art. 

“We wanted to pick an artist whose work speaks to elements (and) iconic pieces in our outdoor sculpture collection,” Jo Reinert, curator of modern and contemporary art at Ulrich, said.

Following the installation, Bianca Beck came to Wichita State and told their life story and journey with the arts.

Growing up in a family of artists, Bianca Beck spent a lot of time hanging out in the art studio in their childhood home while their dad painted. Their dad, Bernard Beck, painted houses. Bianca Beck said that while growing up, they had many conversations about the color combos they saw on houses.

“When we’d see one of these basic houses, my dad would say, ‘Imagine someone comes up to you and says, ‘I have a magical liquid,’” Bianca Beck said. “He’s talking about paint. It can cover any surface and make it any color you can imagine, any color in the world that you can dream of.”

Bianca Beck’s own home was painted in swirls of purple, blues and greens. They said growing up with artists as parents and working with paint shaped their view of the colorful liquid. 

“I saw paint as boundless, three-dimensional and alive. I really do believe that paint is magic,” Bianca Beck said.

Bianca Beck’s mom, Linda Beck, was a painter and was known for wearing flamboyant outfits, makeup and hairstyles. Bianca Beck said their mom’s looks were solely for herself and was her primary artistic outlet. 

Every day in high school, Bianca Beck would leave during lunch and attend “what was essentially a BFA program.” They said they welded large-scale steel sculptures, live figure drawings, created huge paintings and “did every form of printmaking” during the program. 

“The program was free and part of the public school system, but somehow the material budget went bottomless,” Bianca Beck said. “And at the end of each year, we, the students, were told to raid the supply closet. I still have two of the oil paints from that program to this day.”  

During this time, Bianca Beck entered a portrait of their dad into the Ohio State Fair. The 4-by-8 picture won the Ohio Governor’s Award. 

“When you’re a high school student making art in Ohio, that’s (the Ohio Governor’s Award) the big one,” Bianca Beck said. 

After high school, Bianca Beck attended Carnegie Mellon University, which was right down the street from the Carnegie Museum. Bianca Beck said that one day, after living in a windowless apartment and experiencing a “sun-deprived madness,” they went to the hardware store, grabbed chicken wire and roofing tar and began their newest art adventure. 

“Straight A student, my grades took a nosedive as I started skipping classes to focus all my time and efforts on the only thing that suddenly mattered to me: making T. rexes,” Bianca Beck said. 

Once the dinosaurs were finished, Bianca Beck sent out an email to the art department, asking for assistance in carrying the gigantic dinosaurs down the street to the Carnegie Museum. Bianca Beck said 20 artists showed up to help carry the statues “parade style.” 

Bianca Beck said the group placed the dinosaurs facing the front entrance. A private event was going on in the museum, so Bianca Beck stood outside with dinosaurs, allowing drunk people, rich people and other passersby to take photos with the statues. 

Eventually, Bianca Beck walked up to the museum bouncer and managed to get themself into the exclusive event by convincing the bouncer they were a part of the event because of the dinosaurs on the front lawn. 

After college, Bianca Beck moved to New York and found a new relationship between art and the body. 

“I was drawn to the relationship between the body and psyche,” Bianca Beck said. “For me, these artists tap into a deep, energetic current and a need to create that is both political and personal. … I focused on the insides of my body, imagining the dark spaces of my body and the flow of my veins. I was thinking about my paints as body materials, and reorganized my paint tubes out of the usual groupings of reds, green, etc., and into groupings of bone, blood and flesh colors.”

In 2013, Bianca Beck visited their parents’ house. They said they were going through an old room and found a massive collection of photos of their mom. 

Bianca Beck said they took these photos and made them into artworks. Those works became the central theme for their second solo show. 

Bianca Beck’s mom, Linda Beck, attended the Wichita State event where they were speaking. Linda Beck said she felt that they had truly embodied honoring their parents in their art. 

“What I really enjoyed about this was kind of seeing the whole evolution,” Linda Beck said. “You have a baby who’s wonderful, and then you see each phase.” 

Bianca Beck has been part of many galleries and placed many statues around the nation in the past, and has now given one of their latest statues a new home, in front of the Ulrich Museum. 

“People have told me that these sculptures are aspirational, a hope for the future,” Bianca Beck said. “I’ve always thought that they’re actually just portraits of who we are now. We contain fluidity, complexity, resilience, multitudes and joy; we contain all of this and more right now.”