Beth Carter: Between the Ancients and Me

About

Hugo Galerie is proud to announce Beth Carter’s upcoming solo exhibition, Between the Ancients and Me. The collection will feature charcoal and pastel drawings and limited edition bronze and resin sculptures. Carter’s work is characterized by its fantastical subject matter and roots in mythology. Fraught with melancholy and palpable interior lives, her sensitive creatures manage to capture so much of human existence with each simple pose, from whimsy to grief to existential contemplation.

As the exhibition title suggests, Carter’s work merges the past and the present. It is deeply informed by the past, both in content and process, but is, at the same time, undeniably contemporary and relevant. The artist uses ancient methods and materials. Her drawings are done in pastel and charcoal on paper; she crafts her sculptures from clay and wax and then uses the lost-wax process to cast them into bronze. The anatomy of her male nudes recalls ancient Grecian and Roman sculpture, while the animal heads and wings are nods to ancient mythology, which she studied extensively while travelling in Sri Lanka, India, New Zealand, Mexico, Gambia, Kenya and Tanzania. Her works are explorations of the subconscious, which confront timeless issues, such as grief, loneliness, vulnerability, as well as the complex relationship between beasts and humankind, between the real and the imagined. This collection stands at an unusual crossroads, between the past and the present, both in terms of Carter’s work and in the homage Hugo Galerie pays to Axelle Fine Arts, the gallery’s predecessor.

Beth Carter received her degree in Fine Art from Sunderland University in the United Kingdom. In 1995, she was awarded 1st prize in the Northern Graduate Show ‘95 at The Royal College of Art, London. Afterwards, she traveled across several countries to study mythological sculpture; she plays with these classical precedents to create a new genre that is all her own, one she describes as “magical realism.” Her work has been shown in the US and abroad and appears in private collections throughout Europe, Asia and the US. She now lives and works in the UK; she will attend the opening reception on October 22.

For further information, prices and photographic material, please contact the gallery at 212.226.2262 or email info@hugogalerie.com