Beth Dary’s recent projects include MAPspace's first Collaborative Workspace Residency with Sarah Lutz; Equilibrium, a series of blown glass sculptures in the lily pond in Battery Park City and, Full Service Island, a collaborative multi-channel video installation at a service station in Manhattan. Both installations reflect on the fragility of the natural word.

Beth Dary Statement

Bubbles of ancient CO2 captured in Arctic ice; mottled primordial landscapes that, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, grew inside houses; fractal patterns formed by the liquid contaminants in urban runoff -- these phenomena represent nature in transition due our culture's destabilization of the environment. 


The formations that manifest at such sites inspire me, in part because I have always lived at the water's edge, from my childhood on Cape Cod to adult life in New Orleans and New York City. For instance, a series of kinetic sculptures and wall drawings made of tiny black and white-headed pins borrow the patterns of the lethal molds that emerged in homes in New Orleans after Katrina’s floodwaters receded; a multi-channel video projected on to glass windows of a service station captures the chemical turbulence on the surface of puddles on the streets of New York, and an installation of over a thousand hand-built porcelain sculptures represents marine barnacles that will increasingly occupy coastal areas as our actions warm the globe and waters begin to rise. 


Environments under stress are more than a thematic aspect of the work as the materials themselves have transitional qualities and are subject to interactive and evolutionary change. Ceramic sculptures are bisque-fired, without the final firing that would render them impermeable, leaving them porous and vulnerable. A series of blown glass “bubbles” installed in an outdoor urban lily pond take on water and algae from the pond as they become a part of the landscape, and reflect the world around them on their surfaces. 


I explore the liminal space between nature untouched by human intervention and the "new nature" we ourselves have created.


miranda arts project space


www.mirandaartsprojectspace.com


Beth Dary cv
Beth Dary: Emersion, 2010, porcelain, 31 ft x 7 ft x 4 in
Emersion is an installation comprised of over a thousand hand-built porcelain sculptures originally created for Prospect.1.5 in New Orleans. The combination of imagery and choice of materials illustrate the complex and dynamic relationship of land and water; the porcelain 'barnacles' are 'bisque fired', without the final firing that would render them impermeable, leaving them porous and vulnerable. The installation for Prospect 1.5 was configured in a topographical array representing the borders of the Mississippi River in New Orleans and Lower Manhattan's New York Harbor.
Beth Dary: Emersion (detail), 2010, porcelain, 31 ft x 7 ft x 4 in
Beth Dary: Equilibrium, Battery Park City, New York, NY, 2008, glass, dimensions variable
Beth Dary
Beth Dary: Emanation, 2009, glass, 3 ft x 5 ft x 4 ft
Beth Dary
Beth Dary
Beth Dary: Littoral Drift (series), 2010/2012, egg tempera and encaustic on paper, 20x17"
Beth Dary: Littoral Drift (series), 2010/2012, egg tempera and encaustic on paper, 20x17"
Beth Dary: Littoral Drift (series), 2010/2012, egg tempera and encaustic on paper, 20x17"
Beth Dary: Littoral Drift (series), 2010/2012, egg tempera and encaustic on paper, 20x17"
Beth Dary: Littoral Drift (series), 2010/2012, egg tempera and encaustic on paper, 20x17"
Beth Dary: Littoral Drift (series), 2010/2012, egg tempera and encaustic on paper, 20x17"
Beth Dary: Full Service Island, Art In Odd Places, SIGN:2009, Chelsea Carwash, New York, NY
Full Service Island is a collaborative public art installation/video project created with Christy Speakman for Art in Odd Places, SIGN:2009, in NYC. The installation site at the Chelsea Carwash in Manhattan became both studio and stage. Two large-scale videos were projected onto existing glass windows of the station. The videos echoed traces of daily acts at the station and explored imagery of impervious surfaces, runoff, soapsuds and the force of water in a highly urban environment.
Beth Dary: