Text by Regine Basha
…Desire affords agency, but without an object it is lost
(“O: the apparatus” by J. Yolande Daniels, in Crime and Ornament)
(“O: the apparatus” by J. Yolande Daniels, in Crime and Ornament)
Bouquet, realized in collaboration with performer Aaron Philip and photographer Benjamin Fredrickson. This body of work investigates flower and their specific capacity for exaltation or mourning. Considered through collage, performance and photography, the floral characters invoke the artist’s own Colombian roots and the rituals invested within them. The new work signals the artist’s departure from tradition into more ambiguous terrain. Both tender and dark, like many of the objects in the room, the images from Bouquet reveal the results of a playful seduction taken almost to sadistic limits. In this triad scenario, Betancurth suggests a flexibility with control and trust, as well as with collaboration and ownership, which for the artist is a material as well.
