Abstract Views of Nature on Display at the Beebe Estate
Paintings by Yvonne Lamothe
This month’s gallery display at the Beebe Estate features three artists whose nature-focused work connects to environmental activism: Yvonne Lamothe, who describes her work as abstract landscapes; Christina Beecher, who paints imaginary landscapes, and Agusta Agustsson, a textile and collage artist who creates works focused on a variety of environmental concerns.
These three artists connected through their work at Galatea Fine Art gallery in the South End. Agustsson and Lamothe are also involved with the group Shared Habitat Earth, which presents exhibits from artists who use their art to inspire environmental action. Both Lamothe and Beecher are especially interested in salt marshes, and Agustsson’s work in this exhibit is focused on kelp forests. Salt marshes and kelp forests are both at risk from climate change, along with the rich vegetation and animal life that depend on them.
Paintings by Christina Beecher
Agusta Agustsson is a Melrose-based artist, and she brought in Lamothe and Beecher with the thought that their work would display well together. The result is very effective: the three artists use a similar color palette, with bold colors and natural subjects, but each approaches her subject matter using very different techniques and styles.
Agustsson’s main focus as an artist is textiles, but for this show, she created a series of collages depicting kelp forests. “It’s an offshoot of my textile work,” she explained, where she does her own fabric printing on gel plates before creating elaborate quilts with her hand-printed fabrics. In the process of creating her fabrics, she ends up with piles of recycled paper that she uses to clean her gel plates. These pieces of paper end up layered with bright, rich colors, so Agustsson then uses this paper to make collages.
Collages by Agusta Agustsson
Agustsson’s son studies kelp forests in Tanzania, so she explained that her current focus on kelp is both due to environmental concern - healthy kelp forests are important habitats for a variety of animals - and out of this connection to her son while he is far away. Even the materials Agustsson uses in her collages highlight the interweaving of activism and introspection in her work: the kelp and the fish in the collages are made of old resumes and medical papers, weaving in a piece of Agustsson’s personal life with the message of environmentalism and her focus on recycling and repurposing. She uses layering in her collages to create for viewers the effect of looking through a kelp forest, “with the kelp weaving, and little fish swimming around.”
Agustsson explained that she likes working in series like the one she has on display because it allows her to explore different elements from piece to piece, like light and patterns, while maintaining the same basic shapes and figures. The whole series is called "Shimmering Forest," with compositions that vary within the main theme.
Yvonne Lamothe lives near Wollaston Beach in Quincy, on the edge of a salt marsh, and she is inspired by the nature around her in the bright colors and bold strokes of her paintings. “I’ve fallen in love with the marshes, with their colors,” she said. She has painted a series of the same locations in the salt marsh at different times of year, and several of the pieces she has on display at the Beebe are of the view from her backyard. While Lamothe often paints sitting out in the salt marsh, she does sometimes paint from photographs because, as she explained, “things change quickly” in the salt marsh, sometimes from day to day.
Similar to Agustsson, Lamothe’s art has both a personal and an environmental aspect. Her love of the salt marsh has inspired her to environmental activism because, she said, “we can’t lose the wetlands.” It’s a cycle, Lamothe explained: “I appreciate the wetlands more, then I paint them, then I learn more about them.”
While Lamothe does paint from life, her paintings are more abstract than other landscape painters’. “I’m not just trying to copy what I see,” she said. She uses thicker paint, and multiple layers to create shapes that are aesthetically pleasing, and colors that “pop.” The result is a strong texture in each painting, with larger, bolder shapes in some paintings and smaller, more delicate ones in others.
Christina Beecher also creates landscape paintings that aren’t intended to mimic a real scene. She explained that, in her process, what’s most important is having a nice composition. “I don’t plan,” she said, “it kind of just happens. I have reasons for everything I do, but I don’t always know what they are at the time.” While some of her paintings are inspired by real-life scenes, she doesn’t try to paint something that exists in the world: “it makes it more ‘me,’” she explained.
Beecher uses layers and the natural nubs in the linen canvases she uses to create her scenes. She begins most of her paintings with a brown or a dark tone, then pulls away the paint in different sections of the painting to create her composition. “Other painters might draw on the canvas,” she explained, “this is how I lay out my painting.”
Throughout her painting process, Beecher will add and take away color, sometimes using her fingernails to add very fine details, until she is satisfied with the final effect. When creating her composition, she explained, she always begins with setting the horizon, and how far away it is from the viewer - and sometimes she will change or erase major elements of the painting if she doesn’t like how they are coming out. “The beauty of oils is that you can redo them,” she pointed out.
“I’m always going to want to do the sky,” Beecher explained, “because that’s my favorite part.” Like Lamothe, she often paints salt marshes, but the contrast between the styles of the two artists highlights the range of possibilities within landscape painting. The two artists’ paintings are displayed together in two of the exhibit’s three rooms (Agustsson’s collages occupy the third room), and viewers can compare their different approaches: Lamothe’s bold colors and brushstrokes, and Beecher’s more muted, sometimes mystical compositions.
“Sun, Sea, Sky, and Land” is on display at the Beebe Estate on Saturdays in November from 11am to 3pm.
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