Meet Jared Betts, Moncton Artist and New Brunswick's Most Exhibited Painter
What does it look like to bet on yourself so completely that you end up showing in Tokyo, Paris, London, and Iceland, all from a studio in downtown Moncton? That is the Jared Betts story.
Jared Betts is one of New Brunswick's most celebrated visual artists. Born in Moncton in 1983, he is a neo-abstract expressionist whose large-scale, gestural paintings have been shown in over 150 exhibitions across Canada and internationally. His work is held in private and corporate collections in Paris, California, China, Australia, and Iceland. And he does all of it from a studio at the Aberdeen Cultural Centre in the heart of downtown Moncton.
How Jared Betts Became One of New Brunswick's Most Celebrated Visual Artists
Jared earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts from NSCAD University in 2010 and has never stopped moving since. Artist residencies in Iceland, Ireland, Costa Rica, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Exhibitions at the National Gallery of Costa Rica, the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in Fredericton, the Tokyo International Art Fair, and the London International Art Fair at OXO Tower Wharf. Eleven ArtsNB grants. A 100-foot mural in Halifax.
He has shown his work in Germany, New York, Paris, and across Canada. He has completed residencies on multiple continents. And through all of it, Moncton has remained home. Not a launching pad. Not a place he came back to when things got hard. Home.
The choice to root himself here, to build his practice in this city says something important about what Moncton is becoming for creative people who refuse to believe they have to leave to make something real.
Jared Betts and the Public Art That Changed Moncton's Downtown Riverfront
If you have walked the Petitcodiac Riverfront Trail, you have seen Jared's work. His butterfly panels are permanently installed on the banks of the river as part of the Images Rémanentes public art project, a collaboration involving 13 contemporary artists that transformed Moncton's downtown landscape.
That installation matters beyond the artistic merit. It is a signal. It says that Moncton is a city that invests in art, that takes its cultural identity seriously, that believes a beautiful public space is worth building. Jared's contribution to that project is something every person who walks that trail benefits from, whether they know his name or not.
Walking the Riverfront Trail in Moncton and looking for public art? Jared Betts is one of the artists who put it there.
Inside the Meet Me in Moncton Podcast Conversation with Jared Betts, Moncton Artist
This conversation goes well beyond the resume. Jared talks honestly about what it means to choose a creative life. The discipline it requires. The doubt that visits. The deep conviction that art is not a luxury but a necessity. In his words: without art there would be no culture. Even before we learn to speak we are creating art with crayons, making marks, exploring self expression.
He talks about the moment he decided to go all in. What it cost him. What it gave him back. He talks about the experience of showing his work internationally and returning home to Moncton, and why that return always feels right rather than like a retreat.
We talk about what Moncton means to him as a creative. How the city has surprised him. How the community has shown up for artists in ways that are easy to overlook if you are not paying attention. And why he believes Moncton is producing world-class creative talent that the rest of the country has not fully noticed yet.
What You Will Learn from This Moncton Podcast Episode
What it actually takes to build a creative career, the unglamorous parts and the extraordinary ones
Why betting on yourself completely is the only move that ever really works
How Jared thinks about risk, reinvention, and staying true to a vision even when nobody else can see it yet
Why Moncton is a more remarkable creative city than most people realize
The story behind the permanent public art installations on the Petitcodiac Riverfront in downtown Moncton
What Jared Betts Reminded Me About Doing the Work
I started this podcast because I believed Moncton was full of people doing extraordinary things that deserved to be heard. Jared Betts is proof of that belief.
Here is a man who grew up in this city, left to study art, came back, and then built a career that has taken his work to five continents. Not despite being from Moncton. Not in spite of choosing to stay here. Because of the clarity and discipline he developed here, in a studio at the Aberdeen Cultural Centre, showing up to make the work every single day.
That is the lesson. The city does not make the artist. The artist makes the work. But a city that celebrates its artists, that installs their butterfly panels on the riverfront, that funds residencies through ArtsNB, that fills galleries and supports local creative talent? That city is worth staying in. And Jared has voted with his studio lease every single year.
About Jared Betts, Neo-Abstract Expressionist Painter and Moncton New Brunswick Artist
Jared Betts is a Moncton-born neo-abstract expressionist painter and recipient of eleven ArtsNB grants. He has exhibited in over 150 group and solo exhibitions across Canada, Paris, Tokyo, New York, London, Iceland, Germany, and Costa Rica. His work is included in numerous private and corporate collections internationally. He has completed artist residencies in Iceland, Ireland, Costa Rica, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. His public art is permanently installed on the Petitcodiac Riverfront in downtown Moncton as part of the Images Rémanentes project. He works from a studio at the Aberdeen Cultural Centre in Moncton, New Brunswick.
Follow Jared on Instagram: @jaredbetts Visit: jaredbetts.com
Meet Me in Moncton is hosted by Natalie Davison, team lead at Meet Me in Moncton Real Estate and a REALTOR® with 21 years of experience. New episodes are available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
