Beth Elen Roberts
b. 1994, North Wales
Lives and works in Anglesey & London.
Beth Elen Roberts Everywhere you notice, how much your opposite, tears & sinks 2017
Beth Elen Roberts work exists as a palimpsest; each reworked surface bearing a trace of time that has passed. Her sculptural works push how visible and tangible this history becomes to the viewer. And yet, the more she intervenes, the further it is effaced and redefined. It is this gradual distortion that drives her.
“I dismantle and I reconstruct. Collage for me has become an extension of drawing; a tool for interrogating site, surface and space. ‘Everywhere you notice, how much your opposite, tears & sinks’ are a series of images composed of layered, deconstructed prints; an ensemble of historic paintings and postcards bought in Venice. Distorting the lineage of these prints by continuously adding and removing, cutting and layering, became an apt metaphor for Venice itself. Beneath the city’s vibrant façade, I observed a tension, a friction between old and new. It is my understanding that the past can be taken apart and reconfigured. It is neither static nor fixed but a contingent, amorphous substance. Like language, it can be continuously revised and rewritten.”
Beth Elen was recently shortlisted for Young Artist’s scholarship 2016 at the National Eisteddfod for Pages 102 – 105 where she handcrafted a series of dairy utensils; reconstructions of illustrations found in an antique encyclopaedia that belonged to her grandmother. They may at first appear ‘tool-like’ in their quality, but upon closer inspection this understanding was ruptured; frustrated by their illogical proportions.They existed as approximations; echoes of their original drawings. Equal to translating language from one verse to another, meaning can become distorted. She has since taken part in the Manak Raj Goliya Art Residency, Jodhpur, India Draft - Safehouse 2, Copeland Rd / Peckham Arts Festival, London.
The artist was in the following exhibition:
Sightseers
Links :
www.bethelenroberts.com
