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bethany rowland

  • HOME
  • ABOUT
  • PORTFOLIO
    • WHAT MEETS THE EYE (2024)
    • EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN (2023)
    • WHEN ATTENTION BECOMES DEVOTION (2022)
    • LOOKING OUT, LOOKING IN (2021)
    • Mysterium (2021)
    • SIGHTLINES: On Seeing What Is Really There (2020)
    • The Long View, Up Close (2019)
    • Hope in another (2017)
    • Migrant (2016)
    • FOUND (2015)
    • Habitat (2015)
    • Offerings (2014)
    • Field Notes: Considering Resonance & Longing (2013)
  • OTHER WORKS
    • Birds
    • Flora & Fauna
    • Landscapes
    • The Figure
  • UPCOMING exhibitions
  • CONTACT

Mysterium (2021)

opens 7/10/2021 Imogen gallery

View fullsize Mysterium
View fullsize Ballast
View fullsize Closer To the Truth
View fullsize Fever Dream
View fullsize How It Begins
View fullsize In the Blink of An Eye
View fullsize Kingfisher Is A Verb
View fullsize Looking For You
View fullsize Meanwhile
View fullsize Quiescence
View fullsize Sea Crossing
View fullsize The Deep Story of Our Time
View fullsize The Other Side of Moonlight
View fullsize Transfiguration
View fullsize We Don't Know What Will Change Us
View fullsize Winter's Tale
View fullsize The Body Knows

Artist Statement MYSTERIUM

“Our obligation toward [the land] then becomes simple: to approach it with an uncalculating mind, with

an attitude of regard. To try to sense the range and variety of its expression – its weather and colors and

animals. To intend from the beginning to preserve some of the mystery within as a kind of wisdom to be

experienced, not questioned. And to be alert for its openings, for that moment when something sacred

reveals itself within the mundane, and you know the land knows you are there”.

Barry Lopez Arctic Dreams, p. 228

The paintings in this exhibition did not come about easily. After the year we’ve all had, I imagined creating

a comforting and uplifting group of paintings, but those intermediaries who inspire me – raptors, horses,

foxes, wild lands and creatures – had other ideas. I thought they were about one thing, and they wanted

something else. Struggling to discern the theme, I began to question whether I’d have anything to say. Why

did I choose this title, Mysterium, or Barry Lopez’s quote?

I am not a Latin scholar, nor a philosopher, but I had a pervasively Catholic upbringing. Not all of it was

good. My introduction to the concept of mystery came at a young age in Catholic school. The priests and

nuns always seemed to be talking about mysteries – those church teachings beyond our ability to

comprehend. They often answered questions with a definitive, ‘It’s a mystery’. It made a deep impression,

to imagine that there were things that could be felt and even named, yet not understood. There seemed to be

an abundance of mysteries, but in my child’s mind what mattered was the security of knowing I didn’t have

to try to figure it out, because some things just weren’t knowable. But as I grew older, being told by the

priests and nuns that something was a mystery seemed a convenient way to avoid talking about reality.

This exhibition’s title comes from remnants of these childhood memories, and is connected to who I am

now, someone who believes in sacred mysteries. These mysteries aren’t taught. They are, as Lopez

suggests, “a kind of wisdom to be experienced”. It helps me to try to understand through other ways of

knowing – through observation, listening, and being attentive in the process.

I believe that making or viewing a work of art can change us for the better by touching what we feel but

don’t fully understand, which leads to connection, empathy and hope. I don’t have to know, for example,

why I was moved to paint a fox in the middle of a stormy sea. What you see in this group of paintings is

how we – those intermediaries and I – managed to work it out, which may be one way to help the land

know we are there. It has helped me. There is more darkness and uncertainty. It might be an opening for the

sacred.

In gratitude for Barry Lopez.

Bethany Rowland

July 2021


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