Created on silver Mylar with a variety of synthetic pigments, this new body of work continues Betbeze’s exploration into the properties of uncertainty and entropy. Moving amongst the reflective works, viewers find themselves entangled in a dance of creation and degeneration as the play of light on the reflective works subverts the stability of the image.
Made on the floor of Betbeze’s studio, a former auto body shop in Los Angeles, the works are the result of dripping, staining, pooling materials—acrylics, silicon, resin, and more. Just as the Mylar allows for the disintegration and creation of disparate images, or views, as light moves across its surface, these works are fundamentally heterogeneous. From one angle, they behave like industrial accidents: something spontaneous, unplanned, with equal parts humor and menace. From another, they’re in conversation with the tradition of illusionism in art history, whether in painting or photography.
Anna Betbeze lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. She has had solo exhibitions at Mass MOCA; Utah MOCA; The Atlanta Contemporary; Nina Johnson, Miami; Markus Lüttgen, Cologne; Lüttgenmeijer, Berlin; Luxembourg & Dayan &, London; Kate Werble Gallery, New York; and Francois Ghebaly, Los Angeles. Her work has been shown at institutions such as MOMA PS1, Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, The Hessel Museum at Bard College, and The Power Station, Shanghai. Her work has been reviewed in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Artforum, Modern Painters, New York Magazine, Frieze, and The Los Angeles Times. She is a recent recipient of the Rome Prize.
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