No, she’s not pregnant. Having A Baby is the title of a strange little photo series she completed earlier this year. The title is a reference to the cliché idea that creating art is like birthing a child, but it’s also poking fun at the mass perception of women artists, especially photographers. Based on the title alone, most people in the male dominated photo world would groan – “not yet another woman documenting her children, her pregnancy, etc.”
Beth’s title anticipates this attitude on behalf of her art world peers. And then it slaps it back at them with one of the most odd-ball, creative, metametameta groupings of pictures I’ve seen on the net in a long time. (Beth cautioned me here, while I was talking to her previously: “I don’t want anyone looking too hard for these ‘meta’ connections. They might not enjoy the pictures.”)
It seems that while I was busy finishing my photo degree, worrying about consistency or trying to finally throw off the weight of obsessing about technique, Beth was quietly taking pictures with her cell phone, point and shoot nikon, a holga, my borrowed rolleicord, her old slr, a camera she found in a garage, even a little mermaid digital camera (less than one megapixel.) They were all dropping into one big folder to be edited down later.
Connections made, inferences, little jokes, outright attacks on the viewer, on the medium, on expectations. I expect many viewers will not understand what excites me about this gallery. I’m not sure I understand, but I keep laughing.
Many of these photographs carry the same strangeness as her painting, odder perhaps because of their undeniable link to life. Some of them, like the one below, directly reference painting of the past while trying to throw off the hip connotations of their own medium (A holga rothko?).
Take some time and look through it in order. I’m tired and I have trouble expressing how amazing I find this gallery.