Patricia Bengtson-Jones

Life Journey Motion

DATESJuly 18 – September 27, 2009

RECEPTIONFriday, July 31, 2009 from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.

"Winter's Voyage", 2007, marble and glass

Touching the Transcendent

To touch the transcendent is among the highest functions of art. To be sure, the creative exercises of artists fill many roles, from the prosaic and mundane of decoration to the insightful relevance of commentary on issues pertaining to humanity, including politics, race relations, gender identifications and recognitions, our relationship to the earth, and many other concepts and ideas. These forms can be poignant and thought provoking, they can even become hallmark icons, denoting a time and place in human history. The greatest art, however, speaks not only to its own time, but ultimately breaks out of its epoch of creation to reach beyond generations, to speak to humanity as a whole, regardless of geography, politics, and social agendas. Patricia Bengtson-Jones is an artist who seeks to see beyond the prose of time-bound messages and express the poetry of artistic transcendence.

Bengtson-Jones finds her inspiration in the monolithic and elemental relics of an archaeological past. She see affinities between prehistoric attempts to understand and depict realities perceived beyond the physical plane, and efforts of many today who wish to understand the interconnectedness of a world/universe/cosmos beyond our limited store of science, religion, philosophy, and the many “isms” of societies which are all too often caught up in “them vs. us” contests, that by their very nature preclude the encompassing of humanity as a whole. By crossing boundaries of time and geography, Bengtson-Jones is able to reinterpret the ancient messages into a modern vocabulary.

Where then does this leave the viewer who wishes to see beyond the surface beauty of Bengtson-Jones’s hewn stone and metal constructions, aesthetically pleasing in their own right? How do we begin to see and understand the transcendent message of her work that elevates it from visual prose to poetry? By allowing ourselves to be carried into the work. Poetry is a language that needs to be penetrated, and it is by the very act of stopping, absorbing, and then allowing ourselves to make our own cognitive connections between the modern sculpture before us and the heroic remnants of artists distant past that we then begin to perceive the message that connects us all.

Art of the past tells us of times past, but the greatest art also reveals the efforts of artists and seers to connect to realities beyond their ken, the idea that somehow “I and the other (however the ‘other’ may be defined) are one.” Through her decidedly modern sculptures and constructions Patricia Bengtson-Jones shares in that ancient and recurring message. By visually drawing a line from those earliest shamanic creators to her own work, she allows us a platform upon which we may draw our own connections and perhaps, if we take our time to penetrate the poem, to become a part of that sublime message of art.

It is with great honor that the Triton Museum of Art presents this exhibition of work by Patricia Bengtson-Jones. For a time, an all too brief period of weeks, she connects us to the sacred sites of the ancients, and for that we are grateful.

There will be a reception to meet the artist Friday, July 31, 2009 from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.