Beth Letain
The Company She Keeps
Installation View
November 16 – December 22, 2017
Peres Projects, Berlin
Beth LETAIN
Track and Field, 2017
Painting - Oil on canvas
190 x 170 cm (75 x 67 in)
Beth Letain
The Company She Keeps
Installation View
November 16 – December 22, 2017
Peres Projects, Berlin
Beth LETAIN
Every Other, 2017
Painting - Oil on canvas
230 x 190 cm (91 x 75 in)
Beth LETAIN
Pigeon Lake, 2017
Painting - Oil on canvas
230 x 190 cm (91 x 75 in)
Beth Letain
The Company She Keeps
Installation View
November 16 – December 22, 2017
Peres Projects, Berlin
Beth Letain
The Company She Keeps
Installation View
November 16 – December 22, 2017
Peres Projects, Berlin
Beth LETAIN
Courtship Rituals, 2017
Painting - Oil on canvas
230 x 190 cm (91 x 75 in)
Beth Letain
The Company She Keeps
Installation View
November 16 – December 22, 2017
Peres Projects, Berlin
Beth LETAIN
In Tall Grass, 2017
Painting - Oil on canvas
330 x 275 cm (130 x 108 in)
Beth Letain
The Company She Keeps
Installation View
November 16 – December 22, 2017
Peres Projects, Berlin
Beth LETAIN
Dandelion, 2017
Painting - Oil on canvas
330 x 275 cm (130 x 108 in)
Beth Letain
The Company She Keeps
Installation View
November 16 – December 22, 2017
Peres Projects, Berlin
Beth LETAIN
Grand Canyon, 2017
Painting - Oil on canvas
230 x 190 cm (91 x 75 in)
Beth Letain
The Company She Keeps
Installation View
November 16 – December 22, 2017
Peres Projects, Berlin
Beth LETAIN
Fornax, 2017
Painting - Oil on canvas
330 x 275 cm (130 x 108 in)
Beth Letain
The Company She Keeps
Installation View
November 16 – December 22, 2017
Peres Projects, Berlin
Beth LETAIN
Public Affection, 2017
Painting - Oil on canvas
330 x 275 cm (130 x 108 in)
Beth Letain
The Company She Keeps
Installation View
November 16 – December 22, 2017
Peres Projects, Berlin
Beth LETAIN
Boa Constrictor, 2017
Painting - Oil on canvas
230 x 190 cm (91 x 75 in)
Beth Letain
The Company She Keeps
Installation View
November 16 – December 22, 2017
Peres Projects, Berlin
Beth LETAIN
Every Other , 2017
Painting - Oil on canvas
230 x 190 cm (91 x 75 in)
Beth Letain
The Company She Keeps
Installation View
November 16 – December 22, 2017
Peres Projects, Berlin
The Weight of a Scale
In a recent translation of the Pentateuch, it was discovered that Jacob’s ladder is actually a ramp. This news was not all bad. The ramp, helpful when moving a couch, is useful because it displaces weight; a ramp is a shape for adjusting a burden.
The forms of Beth Letain, however, are mostly square, to use the term loosely. Her lines wobble. Her gravity is evasive. Letain’s paintings rearrange the metaphysical schema and her ladders, shoddy at the rungs, are not made for climbing.
Despite having ramps, ascension in ancient Egypt was tough too, and it was governed by a ritual called the Weighing of the Heart. In this ceremony a soul was appraised and given an afterlife if the heart was found weightless when measured against a feather.
In Letain’s pictures there is no such standard. Her paintings don’t ease the soul by satisfying taste. Instead her forms wander on and off the scale as if they’re trying to see what you are trying to weigh. Her pictures are curious about your measurements, curious about what you’re looking at. Letain uses the form of Painting to misplace the burden of gaze. Her pictures shy away from physical metaphor, words get slippery. And if her paintings hold any gravity, it’s probably equal to the weight of your scale.
Peres Projects is pleased to present Beth Letain’s first solo show at the gallery. Beth Letain (b. 1976, Canada) is a Berlin based, Canadian painter who graduated in 1999 from McGill University with a degree in biology. She later went on to study painting at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design graduating 2005, and completed her MFA at SUNY Purchase College, NY in 2008.
Peres Projects’s opening hours are Monday through Friday, 11am – 6pm. For further information and sales inquiries, please contact Javier Peres (jp@peresprojects.com), Nick Koenigsknecht (nick@peresprojects.com) or call at +49 (0) 30 275 950770. For press and media inquiries, please contact media@peresprojects.com or +49 (0) 30 275 950770.