Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Travels inspire artist Jared Betts

Times & Transcript Newspaper

Published Wednesday January 4th, 2012

By: Brett Anningson

Photos: Marc Bones Leblanc




For the next month and a half, visitors will be able to see the work of a young up and coming talent, Jared Betts.

"I was living in Halifax," says Jared, "and moved back to Moncton in 2010. I have been looking for a great place to showcase my work and am glad to have it be the Capitol."

The show, featuring work created in, or inspired by Jared's artist residency last year in Ciudad Colon, Costa Rica, is filled with bright colours and imaginative abstraction.

"I remember being in the rain forest, and walking along looking at these houses painted in such bright beautiful colours," Jared says. "That vibrant landscape was my inspiration for the works."

Jared was born in Moncton, and then went on to earn a bachelor's degree in Fine Arts from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in May 2010. Since 2007 and his decision to make art the focus of his life, he has exhibited his works in over 40 group and solo shows in Atlantic Canada and internationally in several cities in Iceland.

In the summer of 2010, Jared was an artist-in-residence at NES Artist Residency in Skagaströnd in the north of Iceland. Then came the artist residency in Costa Rica.

He has been invited to return to Costa Rica in 2012 for a four-month artist residency in the rainforest and to have a juried solo exhibition at The National Gallery of Costa Rica in San Jose.

"I have been very fortunate to go to these places," Jared muses. "Each place that I travel to has its own culture and therefore its own different art. The creation is taking from the different surroundings. In Costa Rica, the art is very, very bright, very expressive of the southern colours. Iceland has abstract art that really seems to be echoing the lava and volcanic nature of the landscape."

When queried about Maritime culture, he points to the coastal nature of our art, a lot of boats and wharf villages and seascapes. Add to that the uniqueness of Acadian art and this area, too, has a cultural influence on hi work.

"Through each experience my art changes and my points of view about everything changes," Jared says. "Being introduced to new cultures and new languages, new ways of thinking, I bring that into each piece and my style changes from each different residency I do."

In a broader sense, Jared feels that the unifying theme in art is expressing individuality through creating. One of the things that he most enjoys about it is being able to actually create out of nothing. To start with a blank canvas and then paint something that moves other people is probably one of his biggest drives.

"Generally I paint when I feel in a good mood," he says, "and so perhaps my work is filled with inspiration and striving to break the conventions of classical paintings - I am trying to express feelings in an illustrated way.

"Depending on which colours, that sets mood - look at old gothic art and the darker colours, or the war paintings of the 1900s and the mood created through colour and energy... you can sense the mood from just the medium... Where as if you look at an expressionistic painting of a Sunday morning boat ride, it is more gestural and easygoing."

His paintings thus end up more abstract and more emotion-based than reality based. He describes them as thoughts brought to life. In his artist statement it goes on to describe them as structured yet tumultuous, giving avoice to unspoken emotion and the endless static noise of the mind through the long term evolution of compositional arrangement. So he uses bright colours, optical illusions, abstraction and bold gestures to grasp attention.

"I explore the metaphysical," Jared says. "Lately I have done a lot of research on science and colour and the way the brain and the eye is connected. As I have been doing that, the metaphysical questions, around being and question seems to be present. There is a deeper message being displayed in the art which is very interesting."

On display at the Capitol Gallery are five pieces painted in Costa Rica and a number painted in his studio at the Aberdeen Cultural Centre which were influenced by his time there. He describes them as a cross between the things he saw and the dreams he has had since then.

"I am pretty excited about the show and I think that people will see that," he says.

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* WHAT: The works of artist Jared Betts
* WHERE: The Capitol Theatre Art Gallery, located in the front lobby of the performing arts centre.
A Visual Arts Committee oversees the selections of the artists. The exhibitions are scheduled for approximately a two-month time period, subject to other activities in the theatre. The selection of artists is scheduled for early June of each year.
* WHEN: Official opening today, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.; Exhibition continues daily until Feb. 28
* ADMISSION: Free