TAMIE BELDUE

- Tamie Beldue   

 

 

The group of small graphite and watercolor drawings entitled Sleep Series by Tamie Beldue embody the artist’s ability to create drawings that connect the viewer to unconscious states of mind. In these works the depiction of the sleeping infant over a period of days transcribes the intense regard of a mother for her child and at the same time moves beyond portraiture to speak to the universal desire for abandonment in nourishing deep sleep. 

Beldue’s figurative works often depict subjects who are in repose, and at the time her son was born she was “searching for a more candid, everyday subject that isn’t staged, arranged or preconceived.” Body language has been a continuing source of exploration for the artist and the unposed aspect of the model in Enfold, which was exhibited in GreenHill’s Winter Show, was the result of Beldue drawing the model in the familiar space of a favorite couch in her own home.

 

 

Tamie Beldue, Enfold, 2005-2010 graphite, watercolor & encaustic 21” x 31” Collection of Adair Armfield 

 

Beldue notes that her drawings were inspired by “the vulnerable positions my son took while asleep in his crib that I understood as an illustration of his sense of security. Bedtime body language is stripped from the conscious cloak that often masks what individuals are thinking or feeling.”

 

 

 

Tamie Beldue, Sleep Series 2, 2008 graphite & watercolor 6 ¼” x 9 ¼”

 

Beldue begins her works by using watercolor as underpainting “to intuitively establish value, color and temperature within a drawing.” When compared to Enfold, the Sleep Series works appear bathed in a warm incandescent light. The sharp point of graphite is used in delicate descriptive passages such as the infant’s fine hair. Yet it is the rendering of tonal values that is the hallmark of Beldue’s style. The greater part of each drawing is devoted to capturing nuances in light and dark in the bedding that supports and surrounds the sleeping child. 

In Sleep Series 2 the infant, with his face masked by a limp arm, is utterly still when compared to the soft cocoon surrounding him. In this and other works the baby’s light-colored clothing blends with the bedding, integrating the figure into a larger spatial context. Spatial markers such as the bars of the crib suggest the parental perspective of looking down on the child, yet the movement of light and shadow falling on the bed creates an ambiguous space that is otherworldly. 

As photographer Sally Mann stated, “part of the artist’s job is to make the commonplace singular, to project a different interpretation onto the conventional.” The dog design on the bodice of the child’s pajama that gradually becomes apparent or an overturned stuffed toy that appears to dive off the picture plane become actors in a wonderland that we are invited to enter. The appeal of Beldue’s drawing series is how naturally she handles the conversation between the presence of this new unique being and the absence sleep creates, through infinitely subtle shifts in luminosity that like the relinquishment of consciousness transport us. 

 

 

Tamie Beldue, Sleep Series , 2008 graphite & watercolor 6 ¼” x 9 ¼”

 

 

Sleep Series 10, 2008 graphite & watercolor 6 ¼” x 9 ¼” 

 

 

Artist Bio Born in upstate New York, Tamie Beldue is a contemporary American artist focused in mixed media drawings. Beldue received a BFA from the Columbus College of Art & Design and earned her MFA at the University of Cincinnati. Beldue has exhibited extensively in the US in group and solo exhibitions, including the Fort Wayne Museum of Art Realism Biennial, Southern Ohio Museum, North Carolina Museum of Art, Mobile Museum of Art, the Arnot Art Museum’s Re-Presenting Representation, and the Fontbonne University Fine Arts Gallery. Beldue's works are in the permanent collections of the Arnot Museum of Art, The DeYoung Museum, Howard & Judy Tullman Collection, James T. Dyke Collection of Contemporary Drawings and the Sandy & Diane Besser Collection. Currently she is represented by Blue Spiral Galleries in Asheville, NC and is an Associate Professor at the University of North Carolina Asheville. Beldue’s works will be on view at GreenHill in the upcoming survey PRESENCE.

Tamie Beldue Read quotes of Tamie Beldue from Shifting Presences by Elana Hagler here