Center for the Arts
Vero Beach, FL
561-231-0707
"Shadows of the American Dream"
at Vero Beach Center for the Arts
The Center for the Arts' OffCenter
Gallery at Indian River Mall, State Road 60, will present the paintings
of two Florida artists who find their subjects in the area's salvage yards
and recycling bins. The exhibition Shadows of the American Dream,
featuring artists Becky Beerensson and Susan Martin, opened on July 10,
1999 and continues through September 12, 1999. The exhibition is free of
charge and open to the public Monday through Saturday from 10 am to 9 pm
and Sundays from noon until 6 pm.
Becky
Beerensson works in brush-applied ink on paper. Susan Martin paints in acrylic
on canvas. Both artists work in a highly realistic style, but these Merritt
Island artists and residents do not depict the ocean vistas, waving palm
trees and bird life for which coastal Florida is noted. Beerensson uses
the black and white tones of her technique to delineate gritty urban landscapes
and still lifes of the remnants of consumerism, such as crushed automobiles
and newspapers awaiting the recycling vat. Susan Martin's colorful, meticulously
painted works depict close-up views of decrepit trucks and vans, automobile
grilles, rusting drums of unidentified chemical waste, and the like. She
has also been known to paint directly onto automobile parts. The exhibition
contains two works in which the artist used hubcaps as her "canvas."
(left above: Becky Beerensson, End of the Road, ink on paper, 48
1/2 x 36 inches)
But to hear these artists talk, subject matter is not the
most important part of their work. Susan Martin recalled the aesthetic philosophy
of her most influential teacher, photographer Russell Lee, with whom she
studied at the University of Texas. "Everything boils down to composition"
she said, "You can make an interesting composition out of anything
--regardless of the subject." Beerensson agrees. Seeing compositions
in unexpected places, she said, is what her work is about. Both women use
the photographic image as the starting point for their artwork. Beerensson
said that she tries to take her camera with her wherever she goes, because
she never knows where the composition that will be the basis for one of
her ink paintings may appear.
The
use of the photograph is definitely not a short cut for these artists, each
of whom spends about two hundred hours on a single work. The camera records
the complex compositions that Beerensson and Martin find worthy of their
--and our--prolonged interest. A heap of pop bottles or the grimy interior
of a subway car becomes a glittering trove or a mysterious grotto during
the artistic process of translating the visual information in a snapshot
into a painting on paper or canvas. Part of the artists' magic is no more
or less than the judicious exaggeration or suppression of details, the enhancement
of the composition's tonal range, and subtle changes in the basic drawing.
(left above: Susan Martin, Give Me Liberty, 1994, acrylic
on canvas, 30 x 40 inches)
There is also technique. Beerensson's work is painted with
a small, fine-haired brush that she inks by stroking a stamp pad. A painting
is created by layering successively darker films of ink on white illustration
board until the artist achieves the tonal range and depth of black that
she wants.Martin builds up her acrylic paints in thin layers in a technique
called "glazing." This produces a painting with clear, deep colors
and a smooth surface finish. Both techniques require a strong, well-drawn
composition, a clearly realized plan for the end result and lots of perseverance.
Twenty-one paintings created during the past dozen years
will be on exhibit in Shadows of the American Dream. These include
Becky Beerensson's 1989 "in Transit," the painting she says changed
both the mood and the manner of her work. Prior to that painting, Beerensson
favored nostalgia-steeped rural themes, such as weathered barns and rustic
front porches, drawn in ball-point pen. The subject of "in Transit,
" a woman lost in thought in a subway car, was photographed by the
artist on a trip to New York City in 1989. The solitude and privacy of the
woman, whose floppy hat brim obscures the expression on her down-turned
face, sharply contrasts with the insistent graphic, noise of the graffiti
that covers the walls and windows around her. Beerenssen's most recent work,
"Grand Canyon" of 1998, is a continuation of the recyclable materials
theme that she began in 1994. The subject of the painting is an awe-inspiring
valley in a pile composed of thousands of cans. Its tongue-in-cheek title
is typical of both Beerensson and Martin's proclivity for punning.
It comes as no surprise, then, that Susan Martin's "Pop
Art" painting of 1994 is a glistening jumble of empty aluminum and
steel cans, most of which contained soft drinks or beer. Or that her "Driving
Nature," created around 1989, consists of delicately painted natural
subjects --lizards, amphibians, flowers--on real automobile hubcaps.
What does the future hold for these painters of the flip
side of America's abundance? Martin is currently working on a series that
features the rowers who ply the Indian and Banana rivers near her home on
everything from sculls (light, narrow racing boats) to sailboards. Beerensson
is working on landscapes of rural Florida and countrified subjects, such
as her recent "Cracker Tack," in which a row of cowboys' saddles
line a fence. The recyclables theme that pervades her and Susan Martin's
work in the current OffCenter Gallery exhibition is one that the
artists might mine again in the future. "This is part of the American
landscape," Beerensson mused. "This is what's left over."
The exhibition is made possible through the generosity
of Harris Sanitation and Treasure Coast Refuse Corporation. The exhibition's
Gallery Guide is made possible through the generosity of Bill and Jean Johnson.
The OffCenter Gallery is sponsored by the First National Bank and
Trust Company.
Read more about the Center
for the Arts in Resource Library
Magazine
Search for more
articles and essays on American art in Resource Library. See America's Distinguished Artists for biographical information on historic artists.
This page was originally published in1999 in Resource
Library Magazine. Please see Resource Library's Overview section for
more information.
Copyright 2012 Traditional
Fine Arts Organization, Inc., an Arizona nonprofit
corporation. All rights reserved.
Becky
Beerensson works in brush-applied ink on paper. Susan Martin paints in acrylic
on canvas. Both artists work in a highly realistic style, but these Merritt
Island artists and residents do not depict the ocean vistas, waving palm
trees and bird life for which coastal Florida is noted. Beerensson uses
the black and white tones of her technique to delineate gritty urban landscapes
and still lifes of the remnants of consumerism, such as crushed automobiles
and newspapers awaiting the recycling vat. Susan Martin's colorful, meticulously
painted works depict close-up views of decrepit trucks and vans, automobile
grilles, rusting drums of unidentified chemical waste, and the like. She
has also been known to paint directly onto automobile parts. The exhibition
contains two works in which the artist used hubcaps as her "canvas."
(left above: Becky Beerensson, End of the Road, ink on paper, 48
1/2 x 36 inches)