Jeffery C. Becton is among the leading artists using digital technologies within photography practice. Nearly a decade prior to the advent of personal computers that employed a graphic user interface, Becton was already experimenting with early software applications for formatting type digitally at the Yale School of Art’s computer lab. This early engagement with digital tools primed him for the depth of formal and conceptual possibilities that new technologies of the 1980s would bring to artistic production.
Since 1990, Becton has worked in a genre that he refers to as digital montage, combining elements of photography with painting, drawing, and the collaging of other scanned materials. This fusion of multiple formal vocabularies gives rise to ambiguities of time, space, and location within his images, creating alternative realities that are rich with symbolism, both personal and archetypal. As a full-time resident of Maine, Becton is especially drawn to the ocean, finding meaning and inspiration in its challenging and mercurial presence—the embodiment of the beauty and harshness of life and proximity of death. Although Becton draws on his natural surroundings, the local homes, and personal imagery, his work is not about documentation but rather emotional connection—both his own to the materials he uses and the scenes that inspire him and those of the viewers, established in their engagement with his work.
Becton’s work was featured in a 2017 traveling solo retrospective titled The View Out His Window (and in his mind’s eye) that originated at the Bates Museum of Art in Maine, with stops at the Vero Beach Museum of Art in Florida, and Lynchburg College Museum of Art, etc.
“We are delighted to introduce Jeffery Becton’s innovative digital photography to our clients and to the public at large,” said Hollis Taggart. “Becton’s work demonstrates a unique visual creativity as well as mastery of the latest technologies in digital imaging. His work is nostalgic in feeling, and utterly mesmerizing. He is truly deserving of serious critical acclaim.”
The upcoming exhibition will feature a wide breadth of Becton’s work, produced between 1994 and 2018.
For more information about Looking Out, Looking In: Jeffery Becton, please contact us at nine@hollistaggart.com or 212.628.4000. For press inquiries, please contact Kathleen Rogers, Artist Representative, 207.460.9806, or kat@klrcomm.com.
