James Makin Gallery /16 August – 2 September 2017
67 Cambridge St,Collingwood VIC 3066
Opening: Friday 18 August from 6 – 9pm
T: 03 9416 3966 info@jamesmakingallery.com www.jamesmakingallery.com
On Friday 18th August, I attended Betra Fraval’s solo exhibition opening titled ‘Moving Mountains at James Makin Gallery and was taken in the moment I entered the gallery space in which I encountered a full house buzzing with a great crowd, an elevated vibe and of course the star of the show, the paintings. I couldn’t help but notice the crowd’s admiration while standing in front of the beautifully executed paintings that depict landscapes, inviting the viewer to experience, to be present in BetraFavral’s art; the art of painting.
Betra Fraval masterly interprets landscapes and scenery and textures of nature’s elements existing with organic forms of matter and space. Her painting technique is clean, controlled yet playful while precisely describing a moment in timelessness. Her work exhales beauty, clarity and respect.
Rarely do I see contemporary art, let alone painting, being so effortlessly understood and appreciated by the viewers, communicating to people from all walks of life.
Painting is alive and kicking and Betra Fraval does move mountains.
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Camille Klose – Gallery Curator
James Makin Gallery is excited to invite you to ‘Moving Mountains’, a solo exhibition by Betra Fraval.
Fraval’s paintings sit in a place of shared and personal experiences; they are at once familiar yet strange. Silently and wistfully referencing time, rather than place, they emit a calming and contemplative sense of nostalgia. There is a beautiful and precarious coexistence between the organic and the man-made that has been constant in Fraval’s practice.
Progressing from her previous works which explored the delicate meeting of science and art in carefully balanced geo-based installations, Moving Mountains is an exhibition of paintings that continues Fraval’s exploration of graphic impositions left on the landscape as a marker of human legacy, whilst also referencing organic cycles of time.
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Betra Favral – The Artist
My artwork is focused on the cycle of matter within nature. More recently I have been interested in deep time in relation to finite human time and markers for the Anthropocene. I am interested in how ‘things’ or materials can have a creative potential and power. The artworks are driven by curiosity, a detailed meditation on the nature of wonder, fascination, and enquiry and contemplating our place as humans in the continuum.
Thinking about the geologic and material as our partner in creativity and meaning making. Becoming storytelling matter, which acts both as a marker for time/action and metaphor, allowing us to think about how humans relate to and live on the earth.
