ARTIST STATEMENT
I create large, asymmetrical assemblages that explore the formalistic tensions produced through precise manipulation and interweaving of metal and fabric. Equally referential and abstract, these new objects serve as containers for space, composition and the inherent congruency and contradictions of craft and art. My work is as much about process as it is product. It is a continual experimentation with materials and techniques. There is a tactile quality to my work that could be seen as a dialogue with sculptural objects like those of Lee Bontecou, Ava Hesse and Olga de Amaral.
I am fascinated by the materiality of steel and its ability to be transformed into forms that read as fluid, aqueous and molten. There is an inherent malleability that I seek to extract from these traditionally rigid materials, not unrelated to the softness that attracts me in textiles, another material I regularly use to communicate in my work. I see my armature sculptures as an extension of my drawings. Light and shadow create parallel expressions on walls and nearby surfaces that unfold spatially into transfigured three-dimensional forms. I have also begun experimenting in ceramics; as with metal, I am seeking to explore the fluidity of the material and form.
My work speaks to the ubiety of the human hand through such investigative processes as welding, wrapping, casting, sewing, stitching, binding and weaving; while exploring the relationship between gender and materials, women and the domestic, memory, identity and the ascribed inherent value of materials.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Bethany Cordero is a Chicago based artist and is a graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she studied sculpture, fiber and material studies, and design. She creates large, asymmetrical assemblages that explore the formalistic tensions produced through precise manipulation and interweaving of metal and fabric. Equally referential and abstract, her most recent body of work, VESSELS, was primarily an exploration in how these new objects serve as containers for space, composition and the inherent congruency and contradictions of craft and art.
Her work is an exploration in materiality via welding, wrapping, casting, sewing, stitching, binding and weaving; while exploring the relationship between gender and mediums, women and the domestic, memory, identity and the ascribed inherent value of materials.
© Bethany Cordero