Tree Study I by Beth Dow

Hello, collectors! It's Sara, with a quick note to introduce our fifth edition from Beth Dow. It's also a first—a subtly saturated departure from her gorgeous black and white prints, Tree Study 1 debuts Dow's color work.

Since she had her very first NYC solo show at Jen Bekman Gallery way back in 2007 (when 20x200 was a wee baby!), we've been watching Beth's practice unfold. In Fieldwork and In the Garden, Beth married her methods—old school, printed-by-hand, platinum-palladium prints created from digitally enlarged negatives—with her subject matter—studies of the strange and mysterious ways we humans better or damage (which is it?) the land. On landscapes unfettered and fettered gardens alike, our own human nature is inflicted on nature nature.

Beth's recent addition of subdued hues lends this archival pigment print a layer of lusciousness, further obscuring the weirdness of manicured English gardens, in particular. Their slightly unnatural tint was lent by an oncoming storm that eventually rendered the light totally green. It seems, um, natural, that these works were made strikingly, unusually beautiful by something beyond Beth's precise control of exposure, process and frame.

The persistent popularity of Beth's works have left most of her editions sold out or nearly so—if Tree Study 1 strikes your fancy, pick it up, stat.