LATITUDES OF
SALT AND SKY

Latitudes of Salt and Sky was a solo exhibition comprising of eight contemporary landscapes exhibited at Lismore regional gallery in 2020.

 

The following is an excerpt from the shows catalogue essay written by gallery director, Fiona Fraser.

​

"Not content with simply portraying place, Beki literally employs elements of the environment; sunlight, salt water and wind to make her work. Painting with layers of light sensitive cyanotype chemicals, she takes each work out of the studio and exposes them to sunlight, with long exposures creating the darkest of blues. When they reach the perfect depth of hue, she washes the work with sea water collected from the very places depicted, and in doing so, halting the deepening of colour. 

​

At times the image making is pure free-flowing abstraction. What follows is a process of ‘divining’ the landscapes that lurk in the deep ultramarine washes, picking out memories of place to emphasise with paints, ink and more cyanotype... the hint of headland, tumbles of wave-worn rocks, ruffles of lettuce-y seaweed, rain-spattered rockpools, crashing waves on undulating seas and wisps of clouds scudding across heavy skies .Beki soaks in the experience of landscape on her many visits to her favourite coastal places, and coaxes these experiences from the chemistry of her paintings, in order to capture the ‘feel’ of a place rather than precisely what it looks like."