NYAB Event - Beth Carter “Dancing With Morpheus”

Beth Carter “Dancing With Morpheus”

Bertrand Delacroix Gallery

This event has ended.

The collection of new works will be Carter’s first solo exhibition at the gallery, although her work has been featured in numerous BDG group shows in the past. Carter, a native of Bristol, England, is known for her fantastical sculptures and for her intricately detailed drawings on paper. This show will introduce ten new sculptures and several new drawings.

Carter first crafts her sculptures out of clay or wax and subsequently casts them into limited edition works in bronze or resin. Her work is distinct in that while it is deeply rooted in mythology, it plays with classical precedents to create a new genre – one that is steeped in fantasy, melancholy and whimsy. The artist categorizes her works as “magical realism.” There is something captivating and peculiar about her enchanting minotaurs, winged creatures and hybrid forms. Her unusual sculptures are derived deep in her subconscious; the artist emphasizes that her works emerge from an internal, contemplative place and this unfiltered emotion is clear in her striking work.

Perhaps Carter’s most well known piece is the Reading Minotaur, a vulnerable half man, half bull creature naked and hunched over a tiny gold book. This tender piece encapsulates many of the larger themes that run through her entire body of work. Her art often explores the nature of duality and opposition; whether it is the relationship between beasts and humankind, vulnerability and power or the real and the imagined, Carter cleverly juxtaposes conflicting ideas that the viewer, alone, must reconcile. The distinct sense of melancholy present in Carter’s art allows her creatures to be at once physically imposing and emotionally vulnerable. Her thoughtful drawings in charcoal and conté demonstrate this same interior drive to explore sadness and the subconscious. Carter’s unique works create an alternate reality – one that invites the viewer to partake in a journey to a strange, dreamlike world where the lines between man and beast, reality and fantasy and the possible and impossible are no longer clear.