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Beth Ganz
Photographs of the tangled tracery of naked vines referencing energetic line drawing and calligraphy form the primary image source for this “Vine” series. While metaphorically vines bring to mind the persistent force in nature that pushes back on man-made structures driving through concrete, asphalt and stone, they are employed here to play hide and seek with French damask, Chinoiserie and Classical toile patterned wallpapers. In Providence Vines, one can imagine the decay of once elegant interiors that used images inspired by nature for their beauty and to manage, tame and make safe an uncertain world. In the Met Vines, the vine work obscures the playful stylized “oriental” fantasy landscape.
Each piece is the result of many image layers sealed together to achieve one final image. Materials used consist of archival digital pigment prints on translucent kozo shi paper, wallpaper and wax.
In Blue Afternoon and Yellow Toile 2, Spanish moss hanging on live oaks in South Carolina evoke the atmospheric 16th Century German romantic landscapes of Altdorfer. The Spanish Moss Toile series pairs color photographs with French toile wallpaper of carefree lovers playing in the safety of nature. The combined images create landscapes that are at once the locus of mourning for nature’s fate and the persistence of hope and discovery with dream-like visions of utopian places of retreat.
