Bethany Grabert: 1 in 10
Growing up in South Louisiana, Bethany began studying art at a young age with a local Cajun painter. She always found solace in creating something with her hands, and art has been her one constant throughout her life. Prior to pursuing her graduate degree at Georgia State University, she received a BFA with a focus in ceramic sculpture, at Nicholls State University. She is influenced by both her personal experiences and the sociopolitical history of identity, domestic spaces and reproductive health. Her artwork has been exhibited in cities across the United States including New Orleans, New York City, Rochester, Minneapolis, Atlanta and Tampa.
In her most recent work, she explores the multitude of physical reactions and emotions that result when a body lives in pain. Systematic stigmatization exists within the realm of reproductive health care for people who are born with a uterus. She draws her inspiration from her own chronic disease, endometriosis, and from all the people who are stigmatized for living with invisible chronic pain conditions. Her work shows the invisible interior experience of extreme pain that can isolate a person from the world. She is representing the everyday moments that result from the body undergoing pain or stress by exaggerating and distorting the body’s exterior, using it to communicate the interior feelings of agony, exhaustion, depression, anger, weight, fragility and disconnection caused by an invisible disease.
