Selena Beaudry

Selena Beaudry lives and works in London. She received her MFA from Tyler School of Art in 2000. She creates paintings, work on paper and installations. She has shown throughout the United States.

All of my work is created by a series of marks or perhaps the lack of marks. At some point along the way I began to cut up drawings. Cutting up my work led to a rediscovery of my visual language. It brought up questions in my studio practice. What is a mark and what can I do with it? How can I push these marks in new and different directions?

Through this formal exercise I created three bodies of work — piles, collages and paintings. The piles are thoughts, a series of words or sounds. Sometimes it’s a scream, other times babble or a screech. The collages are more lyrical. They string together and flutter and dance across the page. Some are tougher, zigging and zagging across the page bumping and bouncing into one another. The paintings begin by tracing parts of the collages, allowing me to indulge in my love of paint. They combine the dance with the babbles and the screams. Each of the pieces begins to take on its own essence or story. A piece can be about a foggy day, a woman with smeared lipstick on her face, or eating so much you might throw up.

Color has always been central to my work and I use it in a number of ways. It can be personal, from a memory or used as a tool like punctuating a sentence. The color shifts subtly as well as dramatically creating a sense of play in my work. In the end, all of the work has been inspired by my surroundings, adventures and encounters and is a reflection of my ideas of beauty, indulgence, seduction and frivolity.