With effusive pride, Visiting Assistant Professor of Fine Arts Betsey Garand introduced me to her latest work, which comprises the show "Beneath the Surface." Garand (a professor of mine) explained the title: "I wanted to reference not only my method of working … but also the ideas behind my work. It's a layering of different observations and interests that I've had throughout my life that have culminated to this point."
Printmaking, Garand's primary medium, seems particularly conducive to the layering of color, form and idea upon which her art-making hinges.
As she tells her students, printmaking began as early as the stenciled handprint of Paleolithic times, some two million years ago. Today, printmaking consists of a number of techniques that all result in the transference of an ink image from a carved sheet of wood, linoleum or metal, to a piece of paper. A single print can make use of several techniques, and almost all prints can be reproduced to create a set of numbered copies, or an edition.
The exception to that rule is the monotype, a print in which the ink on the block or plate has been manipulated by hand to produce a one-of-a-kind final image. Many of the works in "Beneath the Surface" fall into this category, their sometimes finger-drawn lines exuding a sense of singularity and human presence.
"In my work now," Garand told me, "I reference the physicality of being human, being alive, without being representational." Emphasis on the absent human figure is clear not only in her methods, but also in her subjects.
A number of her prints and drawings betray an affection for jewelry, featuring an image, different each time it appears, that looks something like a string of tiny pumpkins or whole garlic. Garand likes using the silhouettes of bodily adornment in her work, as a necklace or a ring always suggests the figure of its wearer; in "Midst II," a drawing over watercolor, the familiar shape takes on a spinal quality (while also reminiscent of pea greens), extending the nature-body metaphor even further.
Garand's artwork is filled with recurring visual themes, situating each of the pieces in the show as players in a complex dialogue. One of their most striking commonalities is a two-pronged form that in some prints resembles a parting tulip or an opening oyster, and in others looks like conjoined leaves. The fact that Garand is a twin (her sister is also an artist) may shed some light on her preference for a shape that has two distinct, yet connected parts, but she attributes its form to a search for equilibrium. "That idea of duality or balance has always existed in my work," she said. "It's something I've been developing over years because balance is something that we try very hard to achieve as people."
The conjoined leaves are her means of expressing that desire, and they're quite appealing when she applies them as a final layer, as a way to obscure and selectively reveal what lies beneath.
In "Hark," which has inspired Garand's plan for a series of oversized prints, the two-pronged shape has a more specific meaning. Smiling as she recalled the story, Garand explained, "This references my memory of the very first painting I ever did when I was about 10 years old, from a wild rose bud. I painted it on paper. For me, it was a kind of revelatory moment, and I still remember it very vividly even though that little painting doesn't exist any longer. The form of the bud was very tight, yet it was starting to open at the top. The idea that something goes through a transformation is important, and not only physically-because I'm interested in physical transformation-but also psychological transformation, and that's why there's this 'V' up here. That's a point that references opening, or an area of vulnerability."
Garand's process-developing a number of pieces simultaneously over a period of months-and method of layering images over one another give each print a sense of the passage of time; the shadowy, airy forms in the background seem to exist in a slightly different moment than the often more precise forms in the foreground, though they agreeably occupy the same space on paper.
Though her process is meditative, Garand stressed the importance of challenging herself. "I would rather take risks and fail with a piece than not take risks at all," she said. "Unless you're willing to take risks with your work, you're not going to venture into new territory."
In "Beneath the Surface," Garand wandered from the familiar to attempt her first wood engraving on a block of wood that she had received from a former professor; the result, "Link," is an intricate matrix of lines in deep purple, complemented by an overlaid form in grass green.
In another print, straying from the path led her to use an uncharacteristically bright orange, and in yet another, to apply a much darker palette than she's accustomed to. The product of her risk-taking is a gallery of artworks captivating in their distinctions, harmonious in their homage to the wonders of nature, the body and the communion between them.
Garand will give a talk on her work, followed by a reception, on Thurs., Feb. 1, at 4:30 p.m. in the Eli Marsh Gallery, Fayerweather Hall. "Beneath the Surface" runs through Feb. 24. Don't miss it.