b. 1978
Bethany Engstrom is an artist, curator, and educator living and working in Belfast, Maine. She received a BA in Art History 2002, her MFA in Intermedia in 2011 and Interdisciplinary PhD in Intermedial Collaborative Practices in 2014, each from the University of Maine. Engstrom’s recent work utilizes objects, installation, audio, and video, focusing on how these materials can express ideas of time, environment, labor/work, and motherhood. She has participated in residencies at the Volland Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, Hewnoaks Artist Colony, Ellis-Beauregard Foundation and Mildred’s Lane. Her work has been included in exhibitions at the Newport Art Museum, Newport, Rhode Island; Gallery 263, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Collar Works in Troy, New York; Speedwell Contemporary and Cove Street Arts in Portland, Maine; Asymmetrick Arts and the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockland, Maine; Waterfall Arts in Belfast, Maine and the University of Maine. Engstrom is a part-time Assistant Professor in the Intermedia MFA program at UMaine and an adjunct Lecturer, Visual Arts at the University of Maine Augusta, and Bowdoin College. Formerly Associate Curator at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockland, Maine, she is currently the Managing Director of SPEEDWELL Contemporary in Portland, Maine and co-founder and director of the Performance Art Initiative in Maine.
“My creative practice is embedded in a curiosity and a questioning of the spaces we encounter every day, both physical and temporal. The different states of being and experiences they elicit; often resulting in anxieties produced by current social and environmental concerns. Mining investigations into philosophy, sociology, psychology, and pop culture, my work relies on producing shared experiences to connect with others. This has led me recently to reflect on these spaces with explorations of time, place, labor/work, care, and motherhood with a focus on fusing digital and more traditional media in an expanded manner.”
Q. If you could offer your younger self any advice at the start of your artistic career, what would it be?”
A. “If I could give my younger self advice, I would advise to make sure to push myself out of my comfort zone as much as possible. The best work happens in the in between and you have to constantly question what you are doing. Experiment, take chances, and utilize others as resources and inspiration. Take advantage of opportunities as they arise, but also don’t be afraid to say no if it doesn’t work for you.”