November 1, 2024–February 9, 2025
Tephra ICA at Signature
Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art (Tephra ICA) presents Ways of Thinking About Your Life, a solo-exhibition by Maryland-based sculptor and multimedia artist Betsy Packard. The exhibition is on view at the Tephra ICA at Signature gallery November 1, 2024–February 9, 2025, and brings together work by Packard that spans a period of 46 years.
Though the works in the exhibition could be studied anthropologically as artifacts of Betsy Packard’s lifethe motivations of her artistic practice are not solely autobiographical. Old clothing bearing the owner’s memory has been transformed to reveal the flat shapes of its construction. Egg cartons and plastic product packaging have been used as molds for casting cement and plaster. In lieu of more traditional materials such as paint or stone, Packard uses these quotidian keepsakes and detritus equally to play with form, shape, color, and texture.
“An interest in the ideas of history, re-use, and record-keeping with materials was behind the work I wanted to make after time spent as a student in Italy. Clothes I wore, letters, notes, photos, ticket stubs, etc—they have the ability to call up stages in our lives and evoke powerful associations—and I had a desire to preserve these moments in the creation of a physical “journal.” My work began to slowly evolve from this type of personal, literal icon-making toward a more general recording of experience,” says Packard about her practice.
The works in this exhibition span 46 years of the artist’s career, stemming from a lifetime of carefully noting the possibilities of our everyday material surroundings.
Betsy Packard has been an active artist in the Washington, DC-region for over 40 years. Her work has been exhibited across the United States, most recently in Pattern and Process at the Krannert Art Museum at University of Illinois, Metamorphosis: Highlights from the Permanent Collection at The Newcomb Art Museum in New Orleans, and Outliers: Kurt Godwin and Betsy Packard at the Katzen Arts Center. In 1977, Packard installed a site-specific artwork for the inaugural exhibition Louisiana Environments at the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans.
Her work has also been shown regionally and nationally at Galerie Simonne Stern, Curator’s Office, The Shiva Gallery, John Jay College, the City University of New York, West Hubbard Gallery, The Addison Gallery of American Art, the Washington Project for the Arts, McLean Project for the Arts, the District of Columbia Arts Center, Maryland Art Place, Anton Gallery, and Gallery 10, among others.
Packard received Visual Artist’s Grants from the Maryland State Arts Council in 1988 and 1991 and served on the Washington Project for the Arts Board of Directors from 1985–1987. Her work is included in numerous private and public collections, including The Krannert Art Museum, The Newcomb Art Museum, and The American University Museum. She received a BFA from University of Illinois and an MFA from Tulane University.
Pictured at top:
Betsy Packard, .1359 Record of Works, 2024
About Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art
Tephra ICA at Signature, located at the Signature apartment building at 11850 Freedom Dr in Reston, Virgnia, is an innovative satellite gallery space that presents a year-round schedule of exhibitions featuring work by local and regional artists as selected by Tephra ICA curatorial staff. The gallery is provided in partnership with BXP and Bozzuto and generously supported by Reston Community Center.
Tephra ICA is a non-profit, non-collecting institution committed to promoting innovative contemporary art and thinking. Leading with curiosity and care, the organization is a catalyst, generator, and advocate for visual arts. More information can be found at tephraica.org.
Tephra ICA is supported in part by Reston Community Center, ArtsFairfax, Virginia Commission for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts.