Bethany Collins' Time Echoes

Born in Montgomery, Alabama, Bethany Collins's work is deeply rooted in the exploration of race, language, and the American South. Her experience growing up biracial in a society often demanding a binary racial identity fueled her artistic investigation into the underlying meanings and biases within texts like dictionaries, encyclopedias, and legal documents. A signature technique for Collins is the act of erasure. She physically removes or obscures words from historical documents and literary classics not to destroy meaning, but to reveal what she describes as "the unnerving possibility of multiple meanings" and to assert control over texts that can feel exclusionary. In "The Deluge," Collins physically transcribes Herman Melville's *Moby Dick* using a corrosive iron gall ink, a method that ensures the text will slowly eat away at the page. This transforms the act of preservation into one of gradual dissolution, making the artwork itself a meditation on endurance and decay. The exhibition also draws from Sophocles' Greek tragedy *Antigone* and various Americana songs. By reinterpreting these foundational texts, Collins uncovers currents of resistance and perseverance, while also exposing the undertows of violence and conflict that have shaped them. Her early "White Noise" series (2010) stemmed directly from personal experience, where she inscribed and then erased troubling comments made by white classmates during her MFA studies at Georgia State University. This marked a pivotal moment, shifting her focus from personal sources to broader historical and published texts. Collins has received numerous awards, including the Joan Mitchell Fellowship (2022) and the Gwendolyn Knight & Jacob Lawrence Prize (2023). Her work is held in the collections of institutions like the Art Institute of Chicago and the Studio Museum in Harlem, where she was also an artist-in-residence.