Betty Beaumont

Betty Beaumont, born in Toronto, Canada in 1946, is an American inter-media artist, and planner whose work encompasses installation, film, video, photography, environmental projects, text and electronic imaging. After studying at the University of California at Berkeley, she began showing widely in the United States and Europe in the early 1970s. Her work is marked by deep-seated social and ecological concerns, especially evident in “Ocean Landmark Project” (1980), an underwater garden (and active fishing ground) of 17,000 bricks Beaumont cast from 500 tons of recycled coal fly-ash deposited 40 miles outside New York Harbor; “A Night In Alexandria… The Rainforest… Whose Histories Are They Anyway…” (1989), a 35 foot long wall of warehouse shelving with rolling library ladder, charred remnants of over two hundred books Beaumont treated and burned, and an 18 minute LED scanning text detailing the implicit genetic loss of the rain-forest. Beaumont, a resident of New York City since 1973, has taught at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago; UC Berkeley; SUNY Purchase; and Hunter College (NYC). Her many group exhibitions include “Fragile Ecologies” (1992) at the Queens Museum in New York. She has had solo shows in England, Scotland, Sweden, Holland, and the US.