Bethany Collins is a multidisciplinary artist whose conceptual practice examines the relationship between race and language. Centering language--its biases, contradictions, and ability to simultaneously forge connections and foster violence--her works illuminate America's past and offer insight into the development of racial and national identities. Drawing on a wide variety of documents, ranging from nineteenth-century musical scores to US Department of Justice reports, she erases, obscures, excerpts, and rewrites portions of text to bring to the fore issues revolving around race, power, and histories of violence.
Collins’s work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions including At Sea, Seattle Art Museum, WA (2024); Accord, Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art at Auburn University, AL (2024); America: A Hymnal, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA (2023); and My Destiny Is In Your Hands, Montgomery Museum of Fine Art, AL (2021), among others. Collins has participated in many group exhibitions including Prospect.6: the future is present, the harbinger is home, New Orleans, LA (2024); The Dirty South: Contemporary Art, Material Culture, and the Sonic Impulse, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA (2021), traveled to Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, TX (2021), Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR (2022), and Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, CO (2022); and Jacob Lawrence: The American Struggle, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA (2020), traveled to Seattle Art Museum, WA (2021), and The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. (2021). Collins’s work is represented in the collections of The Art Institute of Chicago, IL; Baltimore Museum of Art, MD; Birmingham Museum of Art, AL; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA; The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY; The Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA; and The Studio Museum in Harlem, NY, among others. She is the recipient of many awards and grants, including the 3Arts Next Level Visual Arts Award (2024); Gwendolyn Knight & Jacob Lawrence Prize (2023); Joan Mitchell Fellowship (2022); and The Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (2015), among others. Bethany Collins is also represented by PATRON, Chicago, IL.
