Artist

Bethany de Forest

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50 artworks in our collection

Bethany de Forest (Stoneham, Mass., 1966) graduated from the Utrecht School of the Arts with a degree in photography. From the very beginning, she was creating arrangements and models that she captured photographically. However, using a standard camera, the images remained too detached. She wanted to convey the feeling that she herself was walking around in the worlds she had created. Pinhole photography proved to make this possible. Her beautiful worlds are not always peaceful. The presence of sometimes unexpected elements creates contrast and confronts the viewer with his or her own prejudices. Thus, a creepy insect can be transformed into something beautiful, a small, defenseless fish can become a life-size monster, or a seemingly peaceful world can be haunted by immense desolation. Her inspiration usually begins with a small creature she receives from someone or a particular material that draws her in. From this emerges an idea that often contains a fairy-tale element. Bethany gives herself and the viewer the opportunity to become part of this fairy tale. Yet no series follows an existing fable; the resulting images spring purely from her imagination.

Bethany de Forest constructs her models from unexpected materials such as candle wax, English licorice, sugar cubes, cotton balls, meat, and the like. By allowing the viewer to look so closely, a distinct reality seems to emerge. The inanimate materials come to life, while living subjects are lifted out of reality and transformed into almost static still lifes. To take a pinhole photograph, you need a pinhole camera—a camera without a lens, but with only a small hole to let light in. This means there’s no pressing of a button involved. The image is projected through the hole onto the film inside the camera. The exposure times are much longer than when taking a regular photograph. A model photograph takes an average of ten minutes. Outdoors in daylight, the exposure times are shorter, but always several seconds. The technique produces very vivid and unique results and, as Bethany demonstrates, offers endless possibilities.

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Artwork by Bethany de Forest