Traveling Exhibition: The View Out His Window (and in his mind’s eye): Photographs by Jeffery Becton

Ephemera 12 x 21 med

The Bates Museum of Art invites your museum to participate in the national tour of The View Out His Window (and in his mind’s eye): Photographs by Jeffery Becton.

This exhibition features 12 medium and 12 large format digital montages realized as archival pigment prints (some approach 7 feet in length) focusing on recent work. In the words of catalogue author Carl Little, Becton’s images “…subvert perception by drawing us into an out-of- the-ordinary universe that makes perfect sense. We may be disconcerted by the flooded floor of an adjoining room, but we enter it nonetheless.” The View Out His Window opens at Bates College November 6, 2015 – March 26, 2016, and is available until the end of 2017. We invite you to join us in introducing Becton’s work to a national audience.

Jeffery Becton is a photographer and image-maker who lives on Deer Isle, a rocky and forested island off the coast of Maine. Becton makes work, in part, about his surroundings. The extraordinary sweeping coastal views that are such a part of daily life when one lives by the sea are often incorporated into his images. Equally critical is internal life, both the space inside the home (and the comfort and protection it provides from northern New England’s inclement weather), and the introspective and contemplative space that enlivens one’s imagination, which is no doubt encouraged in this stunning and remote location.

Becton makes rather than takes images. Beginning in the early 1990s—technological light years ago—he began experimenting with digital montage, creating images by fusing visual information from photographs, and scans from various sources into his compositions. Over the years, the subtlety and complexity of his imagery and ideas has evolved along with a fluid inventiveness and mastery of digital processes. To create this work, he photographed, painted and drew, then layered, fused and altered digital imagery from myriad sources, seamlessly constructing images that combine hyperreal detail, highly improbable views, and the unexplainable. In these sublime and illusory images, Becton shares this imagined and altered view from his Down East island home, while inviting us into the mysterious world in his mind’s eye.

The View Out His Window is curated by Bates Museum of Art Director Dan Mills. The exhibition is accompanied by a profusely illustrated 108 page book/catalogue, Jeffery Becton: The Farthest House, with contributions from Carl Little, Dan Mills, Peter Plagens and Deborah Weisgall.

The Museum of Art is offering the exhibition for $4,500 + one-way shipping. The fee includes 40 copies of the hardcover book/catalogue and the donation of one medium format work. Due to the generous support of donors, we are able to offer the exhibition for a fee comparable to the value of the art donation and catalogues. The exhibition includes 24 digital montages realized as archival pigment prints framed and crated for travel, a sample press release, exhibition labels, a press kit with high resolution images, checklist/insurance list, and introductory text panel.

Link to expanded information, fifteen extraordinary images, and a downloadable prospectus

[http://www.bates.edu/museum/traveling/photographs-by-jeffery-becton]

Please feel free to contact me to discuss the exhibition and booking dates. Thank you.

Dan Mills, dmills@bates.edu  207.786.6259.