Bettina Speckner: a rose is a rose is a rose

Book / Catalogues Monograph

Published: 29.03.2011

Bettina Speckner: a rose is a rose is a rose.

Edited by:: Bettina Speckner and Sienna Gallery

Edited at:: Germany

Edited on:: 2011

Technical data:: 44 pages, full colour, 17 x 26 cm

Out of print

Bettina Speckner often employ seemingly banal but peculiar everyday items in her work, forging the sublime and the profane into a new poetic harmony. For this exhibition she has used text for the first time, creating a group of pieces that draw upon the idea that simply using the name of a thing invokes the imagery and emotions associated with it.

He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven

Had I the heavens ' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams

/ William Butler Yeats 1865-1939

In my work, I am particularly fond of photographs. Sometimes they are old and show bygone places or people of former times, quite often however I use photos I took myself of trunks, flowers, lonesome lanes, or landscapes. These pictures turn into pieces of jewelry.

To turn photos into gems, the images are etched on small metal plates or burned on enamel. They become part of an individual composition: precious metals, diamonds, coloured stones, and found objects begin to lead lives of their own. Patterns and ornaments arise. Often I employ seemingly banal but peculiar everyday items, forging the sublime and the profane into a new poetic harmony.

I do not work with the intention to decorate things or making them look prettier. I search to discover the soul of an object or the essence of a photograph and to shape something new which appeals to me and to other people far beyond the optical appearance.

For this exhibition I used text for the first time, creating a group of pieces that draw upon the idea that simply using the name of a thing invokes the imagery and emotions associated with it. Some works came after the text choice and others used the text as a catalyst. To 'see' the pieces it is not necessary to know the text, it is used as another layer, transparent yet substantive.

/ Bettina Speckner, 2010.