The Transmogrification Stunt by Gala Bent.
Unmonstrous by John Allen Taylor. Cover Design by Alban Fischer.
Gala Bent
Wet-plate Collodion Photograph by Daniel Carrillo.
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Artist Statement
As a visual artist, I once considered myself to have gone aside from the work of my parents: a scientist and a musician, who were also teachers. Ironically, though, as I look over my career, some of my most vibrant collaborations have been with scientists and musicians, and most of my own studio work I can easily consider to be songs of devotion written through the lens of scientific learning. My current studio practice continues along these lines, contemplating the contemporary study of black holes and the historical version of the cosmos as a grand song, with singing spheres and harmonious movements of heavenly bodies. My drawings have lately become cloth-like (the link to the Fabric of the Cosmos is not lost on me), purling rows of color or gray graphite in a slow build of lines in variation and reaction. Top off with current reading about octopuses and the oceanic frontier, and I have circled back to Earth systems and the formal resonance between outer space and our own oceans.
Artist Bio
Gala Bent is an artist, mother and educator living in Seattle, Washington. She has a BFA in Painting from Ball State University in Indiana, an MFA in Visual Art from State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo, and currently teaches and leads the first year program in the visual arts at Cornish College of the Arts. Drawings on paper, colored with gouache, are her most prevalent medium, but she also works, when possible, with installation, animation and writing. Gala’s work has been shown locally, nationally and internationally, and she is represented by G.Gibson Gallery in Seattle. Over the course of her career, she has also worked as an illustrator and a collaborator with scientists and musicians.