(b. 1985 Nelspruit, South Africa)

“Sculpture, for me, is a space to explore the feeling of one’s body in relation to an object. Functional objects quite obviously explore this relationship. What is functional or non-functional is debatable, especially in this strange-expanding-spacescape of life. I believe there should always be room for the obvious and non-obvious in all things.

“I am always looking. I read mathematical, philosophical, scientific and medical books that go over my head. Seeking the big, grand, rushing feeling of grasping-and-not-grasping. Pushing always into the unknown. Whatever I am looking for, a fascination with density and looseness is the lens through which I see the world. It’s about how I physically and mentally feel on this earth: things are intense and then blunt, real and then unreal, meaningful and then meaningless. I am in this dynamic tension with my materials too. There is a give and take, a push and pull, an expansion and contraction – a density and looseness to working with steel. It takes a lot as it is a very demanding material: it’s heavy; it’s hot; it’s hard; it behaves unpredictably; it exhausts me. But it gives me so much back, in its permanence and reliability.”

Beth Diane Armstrong 2017

One of the leading contemporary South African sculptors of her generation, Beth Diane Armstrong captures a mastery of the steel medium. Centered on contrasting variations of density and looseness Armstrong’s use of sculpture explores the different expressions of these two terms in relation to scale, structure, materiality, space, representation and process.

Armstrong negotiates an unremitting pull between the desire to be entirely overwhelmed and subsumed by a sculpture and the drive to resolve and contain the idiosyncratic challenges posed by it. A central ambition which continues to inform Armstrong’s process is the translation of fleeting, abstract experiences into the permanence of a physically demanding material such as steel.

Beginning as thought experiments, the works evolve according to a set of parameters which the artist prescribes. Armstrong develops these parameters on the level of underlying structures (calculations, measurements) and through the higher level realizations of the works as sculptural structures, maintaining a synchronous relationship to both aspects. These meticulous processes, her attention to detail and her astounding ability to effortlessly switch between intricate smaller works and imposing large-scale masses of steel reaffirms Armstrong ambitions to grapple with and understand the ways in which bodies experience space and translate this experience into structures, both perceptual and physical

Tim Leibbrandt 2017

Currently living and working in Johannesburg, Armstrong was born in South Africa in 1985. In 2010 she completed, with distinction, her Masters of Fine Arts at Rhodes University. Rhodes bought her BFA exhibition, Hibernation, for their permanent collection. Armstrong has exhibited several solo shows, participated in a number of group shows and projects locally and internationally, as well as being included in various private and public collections. Some highlighted commissions include the completion of a large permanent public artwork, Flag, in Oostvoorne, in the Netherlands (commissioned by the Kern Kunst Westvoorne Foundation); a large sculpture at the Design Miami/Basel Fair in Basel, Switzerland and Design Miami, Florida; and her Page for the National English Literary Museum, a 10-ton outdoor sculpture in Makhanda, South Africa. 2016 saw her launch the NELM Page outdoor commission in Makhanda and also partake in the Yorkshire Sculpture exhibition A Place in Time, hosted at the NIROX Sculpture Park at the Cradle of Human Kind. Armstrong was awarded the prestigious Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Visual Arts in South Africa for 2017.

EDUCATION

2010

Master of Fine Arts with distinction, Rhodes University, Makhanda, South Africa

2007

Bachelor of Fine Arts, cum laude, Rhodes University, Makhanda, South Africa

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2023

Afterglow, Cubicle Series, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2018

In perpetuum, Everard Read, Cape Town; NWU Gallery, Potchefstroom; Oliewenhuis  Museum; NMM Art Museum, Port Elizabeth, South Africa

2017 

In perpetuum, Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg; National Arts Festival, Makhanda, South Africa

2011

Towards an architecture of loss, iArt, Cape Town, South Africa

To skip the last step, iArt Gallery Wembley Project Space, Cape Town, South Africa

2010 Hippocampus, iArt Gallery, Cape Town; Monument, Makhanda, South Africa

2007 Hibernation, Gallery in the Round, Makhanda, South Africa

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2023

FNB Joburg Art Fair, with Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

What I Feel When I Think About The Cosmos, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa

2022

Seduction, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

Spring, group show, Everard Read, Franschhoek, South Africa

Things I’d like to remember, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

FNB Joburg Art Fair, with Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

Too many dinner parties, Meta Foundation, August House, Johannesburg, South Africa

3D in 22, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

2021

OASIS, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

Spring Show, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

2020

Gallery Opening Exhibition, Everard Read, Leeu Estates, Franschhoek South Africa

TINY2020, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

Odyssey, online exhibition, Everard Read, South Africa & UK

Summer, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

PINK: Art Joburg, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

Still, online exhibition, Everard Read, South Africa & UK

Staring Straight to the Future, online exhibition, Everard Read, South Africa & UK

2019    

Southern Aspect, Everard Read, London, UK

FNB Joburg Art Fair, with Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

2018

Summer, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

FNB Joburg Art Fair, with Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

Not a single story, co-curated by Elizabeth Millqvist & Mattias Givel, in association with the Wanås Foundation – Wanås Kons at NIROX Sculpture Park, Johannesburg, South Africa

Investec Cape Town Art Fair, with Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

2017   

FNB Joburg Art Fair, with Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

Investec Cape Town Art Fair, with Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

A Panel of Patrons: a Surge of Artists, Julia Meintjes, Tokara Winery, Stellenbosch

Bronze, Steel & Stone II, Everard Read, London, UK

Off the wall: A group sculpture exhibition, Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

2016

FNB Joburg Art Fair, with Everard Read, Johannesburg, South Africa

Pastoral Abstraction, Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

Opening Exhibition/Summer Season, Everard Read, London, UK

Investec Cape Town Art Fair, with Everard Read, Cape Town, South Africa

A PLACE IN TIME (in association with the Yorkshire Sculpture Park UK), curated by Helen Pheby, NIROX Sculpture Park, Johannesburg, South Africa

Bronze, Steel & Stone, Everard Read, London, UK

2014    

Design Miami, Southern Guild, Miami, Florida, USA

The Benediction of Shade II, David Krut Projects, Johannesburg, South Africa

FNB Joburg Art Fair, with David Krut Projects, Johannesburg, South Africa

Design Miami/Basel, Southern Guild, Basel, Switzerland

NIROX Winter Show, NIROX Sculpture Park, Johannesburg, South Africa

Turbine Art Fair, David Krut Projects, Turbine Hall, Johannesburg, South Africa

Joburg Joburg, Rooftop in Commissioner Street, Johannesburg, South Africa

Guild, Southern Guild, Cape Town, South Africa

2013

Southern Guild 2013 Collection, MOAD, Johannesburg, South Africa

The Benediction of Shade, David Krut Projects, Cape Town, South Africa

After the Rainbow Nation, NIROX Sculpture Park, Johannesburg, South Africa

2012

Material/Representation, BRUNDYN + GONSALVES, Cape Town, South Africa

FNB Joburg Art Fair, with BRUNDYN + GONSALVES, Johannesburg, South Africa

2010

Summer in the City, iArt Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

NOVUS, iArt Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

Make A Difference Foundation Exhibition, iArt Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

The Mechanics and Mysteries of Perception, iArt Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

Johannesburg Art Fair, with iArt Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

2008

ABSA L’Atelier Competition, ABSAGallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

2007

ABSA L’Atelier Competition, ABSA Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

Fourth Year Student Show, Fine Art Building, Makhanda, South Africa

Untitled, Salem House, Salem, South Africa

2006

National Arts Festival, Makhanda, South Africa

2005

National Arts Festival, Makhanda, South Africa

2004

National Arts Festival, Makhanda, South Africa

RESIDENCIES

2013

NIROX Sculpture Park, NIROX Foundation, Cradle of Humankind, South Africa

SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

National English Literary Museum Makhanda, South Africa

Rhodes University, Makhanda, South Africa                                             

Standard Bank of Southern Africa

COMMISSIONS/AWARDS/NOMINATIONS

2020

Shortlisted in the top 80 artists globally to submit a sculpture proposal for the third and fourth The High Line Plinth in New York City

2017

Standard Bank Young Artist Award – Visual Arts

2016

Page, outdoor sculpture, NELM, Makhanda, South Africa

2015

NELM Page outdoor sculpture, Makhanda, South Africa

2014

Flagpole Sculpture Commission for Kern Kunst Westvoorne Foundation, the Netherlands

2011

3 Sculptures for Prescient Investment Management Group’s first major advertising  campaign, Cape Town, South Africa

2010

Not all is Black and White, All for World Foundation, FIFA World Cup Initiative

Academic Honours

2008

Purvis Fine Art Prize

CONFERENCES

2021

Panelist on the discussion The Arts: Shaping the Post-COVID future, with the Horasis Global Meeting. The Chairperson was Richard Vine from Art in America Magazine.

2009

‘Locating Space: An Investigation into Two and Three Dimensions in Art Practice’, Rhodes University Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Conference.

PUBLICATIONS

2017

Included in Ashraf Jamal’s book ‘In the World: Essays on Contemporary South African Art’. Pages 353-368 ‘Beth Diane Armstrong: Critical Object’

in perpetuum Standard Bank Young Artist Award 2017, catalogue in association with Everard Read, Cape Town

2010

‘Hippocampus: Seahorse; brain-structure; spatial map, concept’. Masters Thesis, Rhodes University