Festival des arts visuels en Atlantique
du 24 au 28 juin 2015
Moncton, N.-B.
BIO
Born in Moncton, New Brunswick in 1983, Jared Betts earned a BFA from NSCAD University in 2010. He has exhibited in over 90 group and solo exhibitions in Canada, Paris, New York City, Germany, the United Kingdom, Costa Rica and Iceland.
In 2010, Jared was an artist in residence at NES Artist Residency in Skagaströnd, Iceland. Since 2011, he has done two Costa Rican residencies in the rainforest, which resulted in a two month exhibition at the National Gallery of Costa Rica in San Jose.
In 2014, Jared became part of the New Brunswick Art Bank Collection, exhibited in Paris, Germany, the United Kingdom, British Columbia and at New Brunswick’s provincial gallery - the Beaverbrook Art Gallery.
Jared Betts is represented by Swoon Fine Art in Halifax, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and La Francophilie in Paris, France. He is the recipient of a Nova Scotia Tourism, Culture and Heritage grant and five Arts NB grants. Jared currently works out of Moncton, New Brunswick. His work is included in numerous corporate and private collections in Canada, France, China, Australia and Iceland.
Artist Statement
My paintings inhabit the space where consciousness descends into dream; where pattern and colour expand to become an immersive sensory experience. In this cerebral space, the synthetic fuses with the organic, and images dissolve into an amorphous arrangement of marks. I seek to examine this dream-like suppression of recognizable imagery and capture the visceral sensation that bubbles up from underneath. By combining the graphic edge of mark making with the sublime nature of the colourfield, I aim to create a surface that is both gently dissonant and hyperactive. Multiple layers of tension - between conscious and subconscious, pattern and color, flat surface and illusory depth – propel my desire to use visual cues as a means of stimulating metaphysical sensation.
Some of my greatest inspiration is derived from my home province, it being an empyrean of nature. In fact, most of my work is inspired by hiking in New Brunswick. I attempt to transmute the life-affirming and revitalizing organic energy I experience on these hikes into creative output. I also enjoy representing the oneness of nature, by integrating facets of both regional and exotic wilderness scenes I’ve witnessed firsthand on my travels. The colours, patterns, and shapes in this work for example, have been procured from both local and foreign facets of nature - whether they be animalistic, botanical, or elemental representations. My work is a glimpse of surreal metaphysical emotion rooted in abstract expressionism history.
