Bettina Speckner

Bettina Speckner began her studies in the painting department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. After a few years so moved to the jewelry department under Professor Herman Junger receiving her diploma from Professor Otto Kunzli. Bettina has received many awards and accolades for her work including the prestigious Herbert Hoffmann Prize, commendations for the Danner Prize and The Prize of the State of Bavaria. Since her first solo exhibition in 1995, she has shown internationally, both in numerous solo exhibitions and group shows including Brooching it Diplomatically, curated by Helen Drutt English and Micromegas curated by Otto Kunzli.

Bettina Speckner doesn’t like to talk about her work. When pressed, she speaks of process, or of the parts that compose the whole, in terms of universals of form, color, and structure. Not an unusual response from a jeweler, except that most of Speckner’s work involves mediation of psychologically super-charged photographic images, preciously worked materials, and carefully considered comments on adornment. Photographs inevitably invite speculation and interpretation and each piece offers seductive opportunities to communicate narrative or suggest emotional content. However, in most of the work the image is her subject only as it functions related to its own disruption and abstraction.

Each piece is the record of a complex negotiation between the artist and the shifting elements of a visual conversation. Her tools are formalism, abstraction, and a strong sense of visual integrity. She is aware of the documentary authority of the photograph and works with that quality in very specific ways.

Submitted by Sienna Patti Contemporary