Visual artist and educator Beata Wehr was born in Warsaw, Poland. She paints and creates artist's books, examining in her work ideas of home, place, time, transience and multicultural experiences. She currently lives and works in Tucson, Arizona, traveling back to Europe every year.
Daily Pandora's Box
"I found artists’ books to be especially useful in talking about the issues of identity, immigration, and dislocation. I like their intimate format, and the fact that many media could be combined on the pages, creating layers of images." Her books are usually bilingual, or semi-bilingual and often mix images with writing, pieces of newspapers, found objects and other elements reflecting the everyday life in Tucson as well as her links to Poland.
In the Times of Semi-automatics
Sonoran desert, journeys back to Europe, her collection of the found metal objects inspire many of her recent paintings. "My paintings are mostly intuitive and much influenced by the place I am in." She goes back and forth between figuration and abstraction, trying to capture the feelings associated with specific locations or sometimes transforming the landscape into an almost non-descriptive one.
"Some of the materials I am working with are found, so their history is unknown to me, and this mystery creates yet another layer of thinking about the time with all what is unknown and can only be guessed." Curious how the past determines the present and how what is happening now influences our thinking about the past. "The rhythm of life is different depending on the place we live, our age, occupation, gender, and role in a family and in a society."
Stories From The Past
Rondo
EZY OUT
Memento Mori - open
Found Story - open
BEATA WEHR: ARTIST SPOTLIGHT
OAKLAND ARTISTS GALLERY
MAY 2021