Visual Arts — June 14, 2012 18:52 — 3 Comments

Betsy Barnum

It’s four in the morning and I have just been awoken by a dream.
I am overwhelmed by the emotions felt within my dream world, a taste left on my tongue, but I am lacking the clarity needed to decipher the code.  Images shuffle through my mind’s eye faster than I can make sense of them.  I capture bits and pieces but only those that will themselves towards me.  While this one eye is open the rest of me is filled with the fog and clouds of rest.  Sense at this point is unattainable. Any thread or narrative is left to be discovered, and so is left for tomorrow. Wishing myself back to sleep I am forced to acknowledge that I may, and most likely may not, discover the meaning of these messages but find comfort in knowing that this world is mine, and hope that it will find me again.

When I view Betsy’s work I feel grasped by this moment and more specifically, the moment when the few bits of clarity, the bread crumbs, begin to slip away, blend together and become more of a feeling than a visual.  Betsy, while describing her personal emotive experiences in this work, seems to be describing mine as well.  Ours.  While I’m reminded of the limbo world of the dreaming experience, what she gives us is also more than that.  We are not just asked to view and participate in this work, we are confronted by the deep well of an open heart.  And, like the dreams, I am unable to tell if I am the tree or the one swing from its branches.

-Visual Arts Editor, Elizabeth McDonald

 

 

How You Wear Your Scars


But I Thought I’d Let You Go


Fort Lewis


I Figured As Much


Nest 3


Nest 4


If I May


Its Almost There


Kirkland


Never Sleeps


Notice of Inspection


Owl Service


Soundings in Fathoms


Where Did it All Go


You Were Just Having A Laugh

Bio:

Artist Statement

Betsy Barnum
betsy@danabetsy.com

I use my works on paper to describe my life, expressing thoughts and emotions about specific moments in time. Figures are drawn in positions to suggest buried emotions, fragility, and also strength and resilience. Intertwined with the figures, waves and windblown trees symbolize the unknown, while objects like typewriters and crows act as anchors or guides. In smaller works, these anchors stand alone as symbols. The underlay of collaged ephemera gathered from my day to day life creates a thick, deep surface which, like one’s personality, hides and reveals different things at different times. These paintings act as records of my own life much like a journal. An ongoing narrative, each gesture, color, layer, and object is significant, and each work interacts with the others to establish meaning through a repetition of these elements.

3 Comments

  1. Nick says:

    appropriately mystical intro for intriguingly dreamy images

  2. I have been following Betsy’s work for a few years now believe she is due for this and much more recognition. I love the construction of her bigger pieces, beginning with a paper collage using maps, magazine articles and such and then almost completely over-painting the collage with her images -though some remnants of the collage are faintly visible, titillating the amateur archeologist in me. Barnum’s larger images seem to allude to a story that may be one other than she has depicted -not unlike the way a good poem.

  3. Dee says:

    Betsy,
    The more I see of your work, the more you reveal of yourself.
    It’s an everchanging and growing experience for me. And for you it’s a progression and evolution that leaves me smiling, frowning, puzzling, and always admiring.
    You are unique, as is your art. Keep creating, dreaming, living and loving!
    You AWESOME artist, you!

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The answer isn't poetry, but rather language

- Richard Kenney