Mystic Sky with Self-Portrait - Betye Saar (NEW)
Mystic Sky with Self-Portrait, Betye Saar

Mystic Sky with Self-Portrait

Artist

Betye Saar

Nationality

American

Heritage

African American

Medium

Offset Lithograph

Collage

Construction

Date

1992

Dimensions

21 1/2 x 25 1/4 inches

Edition Size

100 prints in this edition

Printer

Robert "Bob" Franklin

Provenance

Brandywine Workshop and Archives

Location

Philadelphia, PA

About the Work

From the Artist

There has been an apparent thread in my art that weaves from early prints of the 1960s through later collages and assemblages and ties into the current installations. That thread is a curiosity about the mystical.

I am intrigued with combining the remnant of memories, fragments of relics and ordinary objects, with the components of technology. It's a way of delving into the past and reaching into the future simultaneously. The art itself becomes the bridge.

Curiosity
about the unknown
has no boundaries.
Symbols, images, place and cultures merge.
time slips away.
The stars, the cards, the mystic vigil
may hold the answers.
By shifting the point of view
an inner spirit is released.
Free to create.
—Excerpted from http://www.betyesaar.net/gal/gallery.html#fourth, accessed 7-5-2021

Betye Saar's work is intertwined with explorations of world religions, astrology, and mysticism. Saar used objects and symbols of personal significance in Mystic Sky with Self Portrait, 1992, a seven-color offset with collage in an edition of 100, such as celestial planets, a crescent moon, dice, a pyramid, and stars moving toward a flaming heart in the center of the print on a blue backdrop. Her self-portrait shows the artist looking inward, inviting the viewer to enter her spiritual realm. "I realized that by changing the function of the objects, I could transform information and work magic," Saar says. With its collaged shooting stars and a cosmic array of imagery, including a pair of dice (fate/fortune), a flaming heart (spiritual love), an eye in a pyramid (God's all-seeing eye), and a floating mask, Saar's interest in spirituality and symbolism is evident in this artwork (hidden identity and magic). Saar peers out from the bottom corner, an open hand (is it hers?) reaching for the warmth of a red, blazing sun. Her palm is adorned with a miniature moon and sun, as well as the Greek letter omega (the ultimate culmination of all). Across this orderly, personal universe, dynamic images of power and identity tilt and align.
—Adapted from Brandywine Workshop and Archives records and "Fresh, Human and Personal: Signature of Brandywine Workshop," Three Decades of American Printmaking: The Brandywine Workshop Collection (Manchester, VT: Hudson Hills Press, 2004)



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About the Artist

Betye Saar

Betye Saar is a printmaker, sculptor, and collage and assemblage artist born in Los Angeles, CA. She earned a BA from the University of California, Los Angeles, and pursued graduate studies at California State University, Long Beach; California St...

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