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RECENT EXHIBITION:
"Water: Nature and Memory by Betsy Weis"
Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson, New York
May 26-July 3, 2011
Opening Reception: Saturday, May 28, 6-8pm
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I start in nature using a digital camera (which can pick up a wider spectrum of color and light values than the human eye) to record images. Back in my studio, I begin again. Using the computer and recorded images, I sensitively render the memory of nature. I am interested in the evolving aesthetic and experiential perception of nature, and, a lasting intimacy with the natural world.
In Memory Atlas, I remember the fullness of nature, the seemingly calm water that serendipitously agitates from below, depending on wind, weather, light, gravity and temperature. These images aren't perfect; they expose small tensions created when stillness is on the verge of dissipating and the surface appears to begin to fracture. The calm beauty is foiled by a slight blur, as unseen winds and rocks cause uneven waves. A thin veneer of patterns of variegated blacks and whites obliquely indicate that something else is going on. Meanwhile, a cover of calm transcends the visual plane and invites you in. It's a chimera, a fantasy, a reflection, a memory.
I am remembering, and experiencing a slight nostalgia for nature. I desire the simplicity and reliability of ocean waves, big sky and fresh air. Their beauty attracts and holds my attention. I see what I remember. I remember what I remember. Or, to paraphrase 20th Century composer Morton Feldman, We do not see what we see…only what we remember.* The sense that you've seen what you remember is an illusion. Nature is not remembered as it was seen. The pictures I create are suffused with memory, but they are not what I saw; they are what I remember.
* "We do not hear what we hear…only what we remember." Morton Feldman. From Morton Feldman, Give My Regards to Eighth Street: Collected Writings of Morton Feldman, Edited by B. H. Friedman, Exact Change, 2000
Betsy Weis, 2011
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