issue 6
// art
Title: Madre // Artist: Chris Bettencourt
about the piece
| Linocut relief print, hand-painted red ink on paper. 12×12, edition of 50. After spending time in New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas, I was struck by the strength of people I met there. They had fled one home and rebuilt, only to be forced to flee again. Their resilience, persistence, intelligence, resourcefulness, family values, work ethic — they embody the characteristics most Americans claim to exalt, and they are being driven from the country they represent. Madre is part of a two-piece series. In both images, I drew on Catholic and Soviet iconography to portray this mother — and her counterpart, a father — as the American Ideal. A pause inside the storm. A moment to witness what it looks like to keep going when the ground keeps shifting beneath you. |
about the artist // Chris Bettencourt
| Chris Bettencourt is a St. Louis-based multidisciplinary artist, teacher, and community organizer with a residential history in post-industrial cities including Detroit, New Orleans, and Buffalo, and an extensive nomadic practice in the American West and Southwest. She returned to active art-making in 2024 after a long hiatus and has since exhibited widely, winning Best in Show at Art of Darkness at Soulard Art Gallery in St. Louis and Seven at Memento Mori in Denver, with work featured in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Her relief printing practice explores displacement, survival, and resilience — combining precise tooling and design with the democratic potential of the multiple. She also leads Pressing Matters, a community activist printmaking workshop series addressing urgent social justice issues, held at galleries, community spaces, and private venues across the region. |
Instagram: @chrisbettencourt_art
Website
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