Arlene is originally from Chicago.
She her BS from U. Wisconsin, Madison.
Much later she started graduate studies, first at the Institute of Design at IIT, then University of Chicago, and finally completed her MFA at the School of The Art Institute of Chicago.
She exhibited sculpture at numerous Midwest venues, including The Chicago Cultural Center, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Rockford Art Museum, The Federal Center of Chicago, Illinois State Museum in Springfield and Society for Contemporary Photography in Kanas City.
In 1995 she moved to Santa Fe and photography, her ultimate love. This change was inspired by cross-country drives while transitioning to her new home.
Some Western venues for her photography now included St. John’s College in Santa Fe, Harwood Museum in Taos, New Mexico State Capital and Museum of Contemporary Art in Albuquerque, Verve Gallery Santa Fe, The Center for Contemporary Art in Santa Fe.
During this time her work evolved from film to, digital photography to digitally altered photography taking concept beyond to a next level. (see artist statement)..
In 2006 Arlene moved to Red Hook, New York, her current residence. Her work continues to evolve and explore new frontiers. Here she has exhibited at such places as Bard College, Yeshiva University and Chelsea Gallery in NYC, The Dorsky Museum in New Palz, Arts Mid Hudson, Barrett Art Center in Poughkeepsie, Woodstock Artist Association and Museum, Montgomery Rowe in Rhinebeck, BCB Gallery, Hudson NY Opera House, and more
EXHIBITS IN 2018-19
ABOUT TIME, Unison Art Center
MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE, Cocoon Visual Arts Initiative, Poughkeepsie, N.Y.Julia Margaret Cameron Biennial, Barcelona, Spain
RADIUS 50, Woodstock Artists Association and Museum
HOWLAND CULTURAL CENTER, Group Show LRA, Beacon< NY
SMALL WORKS, Gallery 330, Poughkeepsie, Ny
SOME PRESS EXCERPTS
POUGHKEEPSIE JOURNAL, MAY, 2017 by Barbara Gallo Farrell
…..Tell us about your photographs in SENTIENCE and what inspired you to select them?
…….The photogaphs are images taken at the recent Women’s March in Washington, observint women and men being proactive to make their voices and issues heard. The photo-collages are observing people doing everyday, commonplace activities while simultaneously experiencing the vastness of their reverie………………………….
POUGHKEEPSIE JOURNAL Friday, August 9, 2013 portrait of the ArtistArlene Becker_Artworks connect external and internal. by Barbara Gallo Farrell Portrait of the Artist is a regular feature in Enjoy! that spotlights artists with exhibits in the Hudson Valley……………..Tell us about your art exhibit “inSITE” and what inspired you to create it?The title is based on the concept of using a photograph of an ordinary site as a way to reveal some larger insight.…………..Do you think creative individuals like yourself perceive the world differently from other people? I wouldn’t say differently, but perhaps with more intensity………What do you consider to be some of your greatest strengths and weaknesses? Like all serious artists, I observe what I see a little closer—such as noticing the beautiful transparent wings of the cicada as well as its ugly body. The downside of that acute observation is that I lack the practical skill of the cursory glance…………………………………………….
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR ‘AT THE STATION’ Ultrachrome print mounted in Plexiglas, 19-1/4 by 35 in., by Arlene Becker. What appears to be a string of train cars is a mirror image of a single car….caption under picture……………’The vastness of reverie’ Looking at some of the wondrous images included in “Digital Art: 2006” at the Farrell Fishoff Gallery in Santa Fe, N.M. (through June 19………feels like a revelation………….Take “At the Station,” by Arlene Becker. It appears to be a photo of train cars centered On a large black background, reminding one simultaneously of hard-edge painting in strips of increasing and decreasing light and varied degrees of grey with cubes of color strung across the central strip. But a deeper look reveals that the image captures only a portion of a single car mirrored in such a way as to seem as though it were a string of cars. The color has been manipulated to create tension between outside and inside the “cars” – and the shadowy figures within……………“Everything I do is based on the human being within his environment,” says Ms. Becker. The train is the Paris Metro, which she scanned into the computer, creating darkness on either side of the light-producing image she wants us to see, the story she wants to tell us, in which ambiguity is a key element. She speaks of Charles Baudelaire’s “vastness of reverie” as the elemental idea in her work……..By Marilynne Scott Mason
ART NEWS This thought-provoking exhibition, curated by Ori Z. Soltes….….presents 50 contemporary Jewish artists whose works give an updated……definition of identity through religion, nationality, and gender…………….In a similar vein there is Arlene Becker’s complex play on the theme of identity through imitation in her 1997 photograph Elvis in Jerusalem, which shows two Elvis impersonators, one young, one old, on opposite sides of a crowded McDonald’s, ignored by everyone…….Charles Ruas
FORWARD“Jewish Artists: On the Edge,” a Yeshiva University Museum exhibition of 50 Jewish artists – including some converts to Judaism and some who recently rediscovered their faith – seeks to explore the boundaries of “Jewish” art……………….
ALBUQUERUE JOURNAL NORTH – FOCA FOCUS – ARTISTS’ LEWALLEN CONTEMPORARY GALLERY EXHIBITION – Dottie Indyke………There are many interesting photographs, notably Arlene Becker’s “Black Guy, White Guys,” which is a little gem (and at 5-by-7-inches, I do mean little). The basis is a photo Becker took in McDonald’s. In the forefront, black and white men sit at tables: in the background is a cardboard cutout of the clown, Ronald McDonald. The men are depicted in black and white, the clown in color and everything else in royal blue. An archival giclee print that the artist digitally manipulated, the piece is funny and startling, cleverly composed and executed…
SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN – PASA TIEMPO – Arlene Becker: One Man’s Solitude Plus two Buddies, giclee print on canvas, 24 X36 “Interiors by Becker and portraits by Gay Block – January 22, 2004 – We live in a world of reflective and transparent materials, in which privacy is rare and loneliness is common. Photographer Arlene Becker draws attention to the illusory concealment offered by see-through tents, and she shows us the lack of interaction among patrons of a café. She captures the all-too-common feeling of being alone but visible and surrounded by strangers. In her photographs light plays on layers of transparent surfaces. She focuses on environments that protect us from bad weather but provide little emotional warmth. Ambient light becomes lavender and blue when viewed through layers of plastic, and the surface of a wooden picnic table seems sensuous next to such cold beauty. Using Photoshop, she turns parts of her photographs into ghostly shadows, heightening the sense of isolation.
THE NEW MEXICAN – NEW MEXICO – The State of Women’s Art – HARWOOD MUSEUM by Teri Thompson Randell Photographer Arlene Becker’s (Santa Fe) work explores people in various states of longing, alienation, solitude and connection. In Two Girls, two teenagers sit in a fast-food restaurant, staring out the windows toward a harsh, undefined exterior. Becker tinted the print blue, all except for the girls’ hair, which she tinted red, creating a stunning visual contrast and a feeling of shared uncertainty……
The New Mexican WINDY CITY DIFFERENT – by Lynn Kline – Chicago may lie more than a thousand miles from Santa Fe, but you don’t have to travel that far in order to see innovative works created by artists who studied at the Art Institute of Chicago…………….…”Arlene Becker’s black-and-white photograph Breakfast at the Chuckwagon captures the ambience of a crowded café where men in gimme caps, flannel shirts and down vests drink coffee and huddle around tables. The starkness of the black and white offsets the exuberance of the advertisement-laden ceiling and the roadrunners, fish and ears of corn painted on the walls
THE NEW MEXICAN – MUY CALIENTE EN SANTA FE by Shari R Morrison – “..…….Arlene Becker, who does photography of people in everyday settings, like the Chuckwagon restaurant in Espanola where they still serve Jell-O……
THE NEW ORLEANS WEEKLY – 1993 “Arlene Becker’s MASQUE is a full sized humanoid figure of strange portent. It stands mute as a mummy in darkly studded, vaguely Mongol armor. Its face is concealed by a gold oval and the effect is archeological, like a discovery unearthed somewhere in China…..Scrutiny reveals the armor to be overlapping pine cone scales, and the gold mask a gilt turtle shell. But it is the forboding posture and blank visage that touches something at the edge of memory, something mysterious just beyond recall.”
ATLANTA JOURNAL/CONSTITUTION – 1993………Ms Becker is skilled at drawing expressive meaning from unexpected materials as in RETURN II, a 6-foot-high wall piece with swirling steelwool wrapped like cotton candy over the chest of a Cycladic, self-protective posture.”……….Yet the exhibit is as much about Judaism pervading other cultures as it is about the influence of other cultures on Judaism. “Elvis in Jerusalem,” Arlene Becker’s iris print on arches, depicts a Jerusalem-area restaurant full of Elvis memorabilia that rivals collections anywhere in the United States outside Graceland. “I think it’s a comment on Israelis aspiring toward the hero worship of America,” said Reba Wulkan, curator of contemporary exhibitions at the museum. “Just having Elvis in Jerusalem, in a popular store, is a statement on Israeli society.” ……
ALBUQUERUE JOURNAL NORTH FOCA FOCUS – ARTISTS’ LEWALLEN CONTEMPORARY GALLERY EXHIBITION………There are many interesting photographs, notably Arlene Becker’s “Black Guy, White Guys,” which is a little gem (and at 5-by-7-inches, I do mean little). The basis is a photo Becker took in McDonald’s. In the forefront, black and white men sit at tables: in the background is a cardboard cutout of the clown, Ronald McDonald. The men are depicted in black and white, the clown in color and everything else in royal blue. An archival giclee print that the artist digitally manipulated, the piece is funny and startling, cleverly composed and executed…Dottie Indyke
SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN – PASA TIEMPO Arlene Becker: One Man’s Solitude Plus two Buddies, giclee print on canvas, 24 X36……..We live in a world of reflective and transparent materials, in which privacy is rare and loneliness is common. Photographer Arlene Becker draws attention to the illusory concealment offered by see-through tents, and she shows us the lack of interaction among patrons of a café. She captures the all-too-common feeling of being alone but visible and surrounded by strangers. In her photographs light plays on layers of transparent surfaces. She focuses on environments that protect us from bad weather but provide little emotional warmth. Ambient light becomes lavender and blue when viewed through layers of plastic, and the surface of a wooden picnic table seems sensuous next to such cold beauty. Using Photoshop, she turns parts of her photographs into ghostly shadows, heightening the sense of isolation. A show of interiors by Becker and portraits by photographer Gay Block …..Elizabeth Cook-Romero
NEW MEXICO HARWOOD MUSEUM ….…..Photographer Arlene Becker’s (Santa Fe) work explores people in various states of longing, alienation, solitude and connection. In Two Girls, two teenagers sit in a fast-food restaurant, staring out the windows toward a harsh, undefined exterior. Becker tinted the print blue, all except for the girls’ hair, which she tinted red, creating a stunning visual contrast and a feeling of shared uncertainty……Teri Thompson Randall