ELEVATED COLLECTION 001: SPACE / NO – SPACE by Becca Detwiler
For centuries thousands of individuals have recognized a unique relationship between cannabis and creativity, as identified with some of the world’s most famed creators. For everyone from Janis Joplin to Robert Maplethorpe to Leonardo DaVinci to Kanye West, cannabis has had an indelible effect on the works they produce and the vitality of their masterpieces have often been attributed, in many ways, to their individual connection with the plant. Through our rotating galley series Elevated Collection, we intend to showcase these intricate links, by working with local artists, photographers and creatives, to build a greater understanding of the potential cannabis has when combined with self-expression, introspection and collective reflection.
Our first featured artist, Becca Detwiler dances around the meeting of the ethereal and the ephemeral, the comic and the cosmic in her otherworldly mixed media show, entitled SPACE / NO – SPACE.
As a product of Fox Island in the south Puget Sound, Becca has always been influenced by the beauty and abundance of natural inspiration that surrounded her upbringing in the Pacific Northwest. Although Becca has been drawing and sketching her entire life, it is only in recent years that she began to explore the use of color in her work. While previously her work had almost entirely focused on outline, her paintings have come to represent the form of the subject matter; blurring lines to admire the shifting swatches of conditional light, color and shape as found within elements that we see around us every day.
Using surrealism, abstract expressionism and the works of Rene Magritte and Agnes Martin as a platform for inspiration, Becca’s sly, referential and elegiac treatment of common objects like trees, clouds, sky and blank space take on a spiritual mobility that juxtaposes beautifully against modern and often masculine linear elements. Each piece seeks to expose the meeting of the, sharp and the soft, the dream versus reality, and the intersection of masculine and feminine.
The mixed materials used throughout the collection are a gathering of earthen materials sourced from her family farm and around the Greenlake area. Using elements of wood, strings made from her family’s stud Alpaca (Martin), clay, oil and pieces of common hardware such as hinges and copper nails, she pulls her often elusive and buoyant painting concepts back down to earth with objects and elements that everyone can relate to.
Each piece is meant to produce a calming and explorative respite, wherein the emotions evoked can shift from viewing to viewing. In this way, her work can be viewed as perpetual dialogue between the audience and artist, shifting in shape and interpretation with each, individual passing glance.
ELEVATED COLLECTION 001: SPACE / NO – SPACE by Becca Detwiler runs through April 7th, the work is available for purchase via her website http://beccadetwiler.com/.