6 minute read
Boston's Betsy Silverman Makes the Cut
WHAT DEFINES A SUCCESSFUL ARTIST?
manipulate paper to discover its strengths and how it could be used to define space. I built columns, floor pieces, and lattice roofs that played with paper’s translucent characteristics and the beautiful shadows it can cast.”
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The idea of working with recycled magazines as an art form came to Silverman not from just a design or aesthetic consideration, but also from an moral and environmental imperative. Creating her work provides us with something beautiful and also helps to reduce our environmental footprint. She has studied and practiced many forms of art throughout her life – drawing, painting, sculpture – but her connection to paper collage is what gives her joy, challenges her intellect, and fuses her artistic sensibility with her architectural background.
Is it the amount of sales she makes, the way her work resonates with gallery goers, or perhaps just being able to reap the satisfaction of creating work that is unique and innovative. If any, or all, of these elements describes artistic success then Betsy Silverman is enjoying quite a ride.
Having first met up with Silverman back in 2017, I found the Massachusetts artist preparing for an exhibition at the Concord Center for the Visual Arts. This summer sees her enjoying an explosion of opportunities, some international attention, and a website displaying mostly sold art.
What’s all the fuss? A closer look at Betsy Silverman’s work reveals more than what you think you see. This artist creates highly detailed and vibrant scenes of Boston using only carefully curated and cut pieces of paper. All from recycled magazines. Not a single brush stoke of paint nor a hand drawn line exists here.
It is an exercise in delight and wonderment to allow one’s eye to explore the work and discover what lays in wait – baseball players and peacocks become the branches of trees and Tom Brady’s jersey is now the reflection for a car window. Architectural elements are spot on and provide a feeling of being a participant in each scene. There are famous faces, subway maps, lobsters, penguins, contextual phrases and so much more. One only needs to look.
Having earned a Master’s Degree in Architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design, Silverman began working with paper and found it to be a versatile medium for representing structural concepts.
“I was drawn to the efforts of the architect Shigeru Ban to create affordable, environmentally conscious designs for earthquake victims using paper tubes,” said Silverman.
“My Master’s thesis project involved finding ways to fold and The selection of paper she uses to build her cityscapes, as well as portraits, is based not only on elements of color and hue, but also for the individual text and paper quality which enables her to create a multilayered visual story – local Boston publications provide subject matter, art magazines provide quality paper, thickness, and bright color. Works done on commission are also personalized so that art for any client contains elements that are special and unique to that individual or subject.
“I think about the history of the recycled paper source material and how it might fit conceptually with the image that I am creating.Sometimes, this involves using text that literally conveys a message, comment, or identification of the subject matter. Other times, an individual paper fragment might include an image that helps tell the story of the whole work. I like to have fun with these elements, too. For example, I’ve done portraits of dogs that incorporate images of their favorite foods, like steak and chicken.”
Silverman begins her process by photographing street scenes, objects, or individuals which she then uses as reference. I imaged her studio to be piled high with boxes of cut paper but this is not the case. Silverman does not rummage through hundreds of pre-selected scraps in order to process her work. She only begins
taking cuts from magazines in accordance with the theme of each piece. Everything on the canvas, from light and shadow, to the creation of buildings, to the assemblage of cars and people are completely customized. Some of the paper selections are so slight that she must use tweezers to apply them.
While Silverman creates portraits, animal art, and still life, it is her cityscapes which make up her bread and butter. She tells how Boston provides an amazing backdrop for the work she does.
“I love the history of Boston and I constantly delight in the juxtaposition and preservation of the old buildings against the new. The sports teams are rich in tradition and success … and some suffering. The seafood is amazing. And I also love thatBoston is a walkable city. I can go from the North End to FaneuilHall and on to the Public Garden to photograph for future collages all in one day. As an artist, the city has a scale to it that allows me to capture different dimensions of visual and cultural experience in a single canvas.”
Marathon Sheriff, a 30” x 40” canvas stands as a tribute to thes urvivors of the Boston Marathon bombing on April 15, 2013.Exploring the detail of the image shows not only a beautiful work of art, but the text she includes references the event and Boston’s emotions about it. Snippets such as “Empowering Athletes”
“The Beat” (referencing the police), “Come run with us” and“Love” add to the richness of the work. Attention to detail canalso be noted here with the distortion of the runners legs and theface of the cop as seen through the windshield of the motorcycle.This type of detail is signature for Silverman.
Other pieces such as Quincy Market and Chinatown – both 36”x 48” canvas – are typical size dimensions for her cityscapes. She explains how she gives character to even the smallest figures and objects in each collage.
“In Quincy Market, the woman’s glasses are reflective at the top. Her breast is accentuated using highlighted pieces of paper found in the pattern that I used for the rest of her clothing,” she says. “The word ‘Tavern’ at the lower right of the piece is given the feel of being painted on the window glass by having the “T” overlap the wood of the window frame ... and also the wood that is reflected in the glass is darker to enhance the illusion.”
In the Chinatown piece, Silverman’s original photograph had a lot going on in the span of only a block or two. She loved the opportunity to work with a lot of detail. Neon signs are created to show the proper reflective attributes and car windows provide different reflections based on their positions.
“I think that a lot of what I try to achieve in my work is to provide the viewer with another lens to view their surroundings or a subject because there is constant unfolding tension among the perspectival realism, the physical paper cuttings, and the original magazine texts, colors, and images. It’s my way of asking someone to stop, take in, and appreciate the space around them that people might see every day but typically hurry past. Boston is such a fantastic, beautiful city with diverse and constantly changing views.”
Silverman hopes to continue to explore new avenues for expression, and while her cityscapes have become a passion and a niche, she is also pursuing the creation of various forms of still life – especially ones that allow for distinct reflections of light. Paper Tube Paints, 36 x 36”, is an example.
“Paper Tube Paints gave me a chance to take all the old paint tubes I have, and never use, throw them in a pile and recreate them using magazines. I loved the irony of representing paint tubes with a different medium, one that is completely unrelated, and infusing the tubes with all sorts of text about women artists, famous artists, New England artists, and words having to do with art and some of its history,” she said.
“There was also the challenge of using paper to represent the way light is reflected on the tubes, creating metal tops and openings, turning text on its side to create the ridges in the caps and making something out of paper that looks like wet paint. As another experiment, this was the first work in which I covered the piece with a layer of glossy resin to give it a more contemporary feel.”
Betsy Silverman is thrilled with the evolution of her career and is exhibiting at a number of galleries this season. She regularly shows at Gallery Blink, in Lexington MA, and has been selected for a two person exhibition at New England BioLabs running from November 6 through December 18th, 2018. She recently completed three commissioned works - two for Tufts University Medical School and the third for healthcare organization, Care Dimensions. She is currently working on a large commissioned piece for a private home in London, England. ¨
BY LISA MIKULSKI
