THE ARTS
Artist focuses on nature

By KEVIN COSTELLO CORRESPONDENT


Published: Thursday, August 14, 2008 at 1:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, August 13, 2008 at 12:40 p.m.
Elizabeth Santiago Berken's mixed media bas-reliefs on view at the Peter Paul Gallery reflect a growing fascination among twentysomethings for symbolism. Born in 1985 in Denver and soon to be a senior at the Ringling College of Art and Design, Berken's sculpture has a visceral presence and a rare maturity of formal invention.



ARTWORK BY ELIZABETH SANTIAGO BERKEN
During her spring 2007 semester Berken participated in an exchange program the college has with20the Pont Aven School of Contemporary Art in Brittany, France. "It made me aware of the enormous possibilities of collage," she said.
Three of a series of five mixed-media bas-reliefs titled "Living in the Tree" at the gallery came about when the artist saw a face in the branches of a banyan tree.
"It was a beautiful soldier-like face," she said. "I often meditate closely on rocks and trees."
Her process for these reliefs began with a photograph of the tree's branches. She then glued the photograph to a sheet of aluminum and poured epoxy over both to add gloss. "I have a love of epoxy ... it has a gross/beautiful look about it." Then she gnarled the edge of the aluminum support by gingerly melting it with an oxy-acetylene torch. "Wearing gloves and a mask while holding the torch certainly concentrates the mind ... metal takes paint well, too."
Artists have been anthropomorphizing stones and trees in art since the dawn of history. What gives Berken's sculpture energy are the nuances of interference she brings to her photographs, found objects, metal support and paint.
Central to her process is the appropriation of pre-existing images and concepts. The artist matured in the computer age: a time of icons as ubiquitous as those of the Middle Ages and consequently a world view shaped by the personal computer, cell phone and blogs.
Information innovation more than any other factor has been the driving force in changes of artistic style. Today's youth absorb a plethora of images on a scale not seen in human history -- images seen so quickly they become disassociated from their original significance.
This has occurred because human nature always moves toward avoidance of mental uncertainty or pain in its desire for psychological balance. When the mind cannot digest the significance of so many streaming images, it decodes and homogenizes them into elements of basic design. Over time children of the screen focus only on the visual richness of these images, not their cultural meaning.
Berken and others who share her relation to images are inventing a visual language in which aesthetic dissonance is achieved through stripping old icons of their meaning for the purpose of encoding them with ambiguity in the service of art alone. These are early days.

This story appeared in print on page E24