A SENSE OF PLACE 47°-80° N
Bethany Springer

January 16 - May 12, 2019

Opening Reception: Friday, February 1, 2019 | 5 - 9 PM during Art Loop

A Sense of Place 47° - 80° N explores issues of habitation and identity in Springer's multi-media aesthetics. Using the camera or constructed pieces of metal, Springer transforms the gallery cube into a vessel of discovery. Her work investigates the space between romantic idealism and stark realism. With heightened influence by history, heritage, globalization, and the current age of information overload, Springer's work presents the contours of systems and constructs with which we often surround ourselves to create awareness and dialogue. 

Unidentifiable constructed floor pieces commingle with familiar found objects; photographs offer a sense of familiarity, yet dotted with apparently random structures or items to generate consciousness of the constantly accelerating world. Her installations ask if it is possible to experience that sense of being set adrift into an abyss in a society that is increasingly connected? In the quest to plant a dialectic between "lost-ness" and "found-ness" Springer's work examines how place is established, reinforced, and abandoned through the juxtaposition of seemingly disparate historical and contemporary images.

Bethany Springer was born in Washington, D.C. in 1975. Her installations have been exhibited at venues including 21C Museum Hotel in Bentonville, Maryland Art Place (MAP) in Baltimore, Boston Center for the Arts, the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, Creative Arts Workshop in New Haven, the Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, City Gallery East in Atlanta, the Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville, the Georgia Museum of Art, the Kansas City Artists Coalition, and Full Tilt Creative Centre in Newfoundland, Canada.

Springer received her MFA in Sculpture from the University of Georgia in 2001. She is the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Arkansas Arts Council, an Artist Mini Grant from the Iowa Arts Council, a Community Research Award from the University of Arkansas Community and Family Institute, and a Research Grant from the Center for Digital Technology and Learning at Drake University in Des Moines. Springer has been in residence at Full Tilt Creative Centre and Terra Nova National Park in Newfoundland, the Hambidge Center for the Creative Arts & Sciences in Georgia, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA, the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, NE, the Artist House at St. Mary's College of Maryland, and The Arctic Circle in the International Territory of Svalbard. Springer currently lives and works in Fayetteville, Arkansas and is an Associate Professor in Sculpture at the University of Arkansas.

Curated by Morgan Hamilton.

Beckler Family Gallery