URBAN INVITES ARTIST: BETH DARY
Exhibition: Equilibrium
Location:Lily Pool, located on the Hudson River Esplanade in Battery ParK City
Dates: Fall 2008
Hosted by: Battery City Parks Conservancy and Battery Park City Authority
Beth Dary is a New York-based visual artist who, through a variety of media, deals with the tension between the natural and the unnatural. Through her public art installations, encaustic works, and sculptures, Dary aims to understand how people interact with and change a world that they are intrinsically unable to perceive. Her work deals with both the spiritual and the political; she draws inspiration from sources as specific and topical as the mold patterns prevalent in the aftermath of Hurrican Katrina, or as metaphysical as the figurative "bubble" that we live in. Ultimately, her goal is to understand the vulnerability and regenerative strength that are interwoven in every individual's life. This is articulated in Equilibrium, in which Dary has created what appear to be permanent bubbles on the surface of an urban lily pool. The work is playful and insightful, and the intransience of glass, her chosen medium, conflicts with the natural ephemeral quality of real bubbles, in a way that causes the viewer some degree of reflection.
Dary received her BFA in 1988 from Syracuse University and went on to complete an MFA from Memphis College of Art in 2007. She has exhibited her work both solo and in collaboration, and her work has also been curated into exhibits at the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Bronx River Arts Center, and the R & F Encaustic Works International Biennial. It is also displayed in many private and corporate collections including the Whitney National Bank and the New Orleans Museum of Art.