Weekly Planet Review by Adrienne Golub
3/1/01 (Full
Story)
Tampa photographer Barbra Beeler incorporates
elements from popular culture and personalized objects while
struggling with the demons of her inner self. Her process is
a fascinating combination.
This working from the outside-in and
inside-out is evident throughout her current solo exhibition
at Ybor's HCC Art Gallery. In particular, "Batgirl"
and "Mother's Milk," both selected for Tampa Museum
of Art's UNDERcurrent/OVERview 2000, are shown to advantage here.
The exhibition includes 14 large photos
within several series: dreams, live-models, and the recent post-cards.
Small framed studies demonstrate process and future directions,
including an apparently rare phenomenon, female violence against
males. Beeler motifs are everywhere, nostalgia, sexuality and
aggression, the latter sometimes taking the form of Scrabble
letters spelling words like "blood." These are the
least effective, not only for their mass-produced concreteness
(like Barbara Kruger's overkill lettering), but because they
lack the subtlety that Beeler has so ably used in other works.
Like her Polaroid teacher, Florida photographer
Anna Tomczak, who shows at St. Pete's Merrick Gallery, Beeler
is drawn to the seductive and unique properties of the large-format
Polaroid camera. At 6 feet high and 300 pounds, it's a pricey
apparatus one rents, in addition to the studio, and by reservation.
Only three exist in the world. Beeler is fascinated by super-real
clarity where heightened details magnify the texture of the watercolor
paper she prints on, fabric threadcounts, even individual strands
of hair.
In a process Beeler repeats whether
using her 1940s era press camera or visiting Polaroid studios
in San Francisco or Prague, she creates small preparatory studies,
framing them through a viewfinder before snapping. Included are
textured fabrics and actual objects ranging from small dolls,
children's books, and framed photos, to fresh flowers and vegetables.
Clues to the photographs of HCC's Suzanne
Camp Crosby are evident, especially in Beeler's diorama stage-sets
and plastic figurines, something we also see in the work of New
York photographer Laurie Simmons. What's different is Beeler's
dark side sensibility, seen in photos like "Entanglement."
On another level, her new "postcard series" reveals
her compulsion to express the emotional turmoil of personal relationships.
These images seem less visually resolved or riveting than the
complex early pieces.
"Batgirl" exhibits a mature
and promising restraint of figures and textures. Draped cloth
infuses the overall image with rich texture and design, suggesting
an effective collision of ideas and culture. It is neither sensationalized
nor screaming, and it leaves room for us to peel meanings away
and still enjoy the elegant aesthetic overlay. But what makes
it different from other photos in the exhibition is its intelligently
staged illusion of depth. We are led into the composition where
a red-framed sexually-suggestive photo, somewhat blurry, quietly
hints of a dark undercurrent. The image as a whole is very effective.
Though Beeler apparently added abundant
wall text after the show was hung, it should have been left on
the table. Too much reliance on text, especially when it looks
like an afterthought, is not a satisfactory experience to viewers
trying to digest visual images. Despite our curiosity, images
deserve to stand on their own.
Gallery Coordinator Carolyn Cosar, new
to the area and to her job, is doing a super job of developing
a broad range of exhibitions. I hope HCC will find a way to extend
gallery hours, a requisite if this is to become a stop for artists
and art-lovers.
Gasparilla Fine Arts Peview: A Fine
Weekend for Art
Nice weather and the works of 300 artists and
craftspeople should attract crowds to the bay
area's largest outdoor art show.
By MARY ANN MARGER
© St. Petersburg Times, published March 1, 2001 (Full
Story)
Excerpts:
Count on plenty that's new under the sun as the Gasparilla
Festival of the Arts takesplace Saturday andSunday along Ashley
Drive in downtown Tampa. More than half ofthis year's 300 artists
did not exhibit there last year
With 300 artists, Gasparilla is the area's largest outdoor
show and often the best...
As you stroll down Ashley and adjacent streets, you're bound
to be seduced by the work of newcomers, or artists returning
after a hiatus. Among those to look for:
Tampa photographer Barbra Beeler,
who shoots staged settings with a Polaroid, then transfers the
image to watercolor paper. In Gasparilla for the first time,
she is one of the area's most talked-about young artists and
showed in the Tampa Museum of Art's prestigious "underCURRENT/overVIEW"
last year. Where will she go from here?
Arts on the Park Starts New Season
By EDWIN RYAN BAILEY Polk News Chief
(September 1999, excerpt below - full
story)
"...Photography and mixed media works dominated the show,
as is
evident by the awards announced at the opening Thursday night.
Judge Beth Ford's choices seemed very clear to me.
"Best of Show" deservedly went to Barbra
Beeler for Batgirl, a large Polacolor Transfer. Combining
tight photography with a mastery of depth-of-field and
solid composition, it is a modern Vanitas. A visually
slick image made more powerful by remnants of emulsion run-off
around its edge, Beeler's work represents the new tradition of
photographic still life...."
Edwin Ryan Bailey has a master's degree in
fine arts and is a full-time artist and art instructor. He can
be reached in care of the News Chief: "Art Scene" appears
the first and third Friday of each month.
