ART CITIES:Berlin-Beth Letain

Coming from a background in science, Beth Letain’s approach to painting is driven by an ‘imperative. The artiststudied at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, and SUNY Purchase College, graduating with an MFA in 2008. She has exhibited recently in Montreal, Brooklyn, and Boston. She currently lives and works in Berlin.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Peres Projects Archive

Beth Letain presents her solo exhibition “The Company She Keeps” at Peres Projects in Berlin. The artist makes paintings that teeter between abstraction and representation. Using thickly impastoed paint and lush color, Letains’ paintings explore the implications of taking generosity and abundance to illogical. Similar to experiments in the laboratory, her works are fuelled by inexplicable necessity to leap into the unknown, following only an intuitive urge to explore the unknown.  The supporting material of the work, a text by Aaron Weldon, entitled “The Weight of a Scale”, provides insight into the drives underlying her creations. As Aaron Weldon says “…Her paintings don’t ease the soul by satisfying taste. Instead her forms wander on and off the scale as if they’re trying to see what you are trying to weigh. Her pictures are curious about your measurements, curious about what you’re looking at. Letain uses the form of Painting to misplace the burden of gaze. Her pictures shy away from physical metaphor, words get slippery. And if her paintings hold any gravity, it’s probably equal to the weight of your scale”. The paintings are a small sample from a larger set of preliminary designs, made by Beth Letain to shape ideas before they become large-scale paintings.  These designs, placed under the heading of daily tasks in the workshop, act as a repetition of telegraphic gestures and motives, which will then are performed in their fullest canvas. The artist’s labour in preparing the canvases through layers of gesso and her gestures in creating the lines are apparent. With their minimal shapes, they testify to Letain’s careful selection of forms from a substantial collection of preparatory drawings.

Info: Peres Projects, Karl-Marx-Alle 82, Berlin, Duration: 16/11-22/12/17, Days & Hours: Mon-Fri 11:00-18:00, https://peresprojects.com