Art + Artists

Bethany Collins is a multidisciplinary artist whose conceptually driven work is fueled by a critical exploration of how race and language interact. In her Contronym series, for instance, Collins inscribes word definitions from the Webster’s New World Dictionary of American Language onto American Masters–brand paper and then aggressively obscures much of these entries with an eraser; what remains are snippets of meaning that are poetically charged through their isolation, as well as the crumbled paper bits left behind from the erasing process. As Holland Cotter noted, writing in The New York Times, “language itself, viewed as intrinsically racialized, is Bethany Collins’s primary material.” Her works have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions nationwide, including the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Drawing Center, and the Birmingham Museum of Art. Collins has been awarded artist residencies at such places as the Studio Museum in Harlem, MacDowell Colony, and Hyde Park Art Center.