Bethany de Forest creates her own worlds. Literal. She creates mystical places in the form of diorama’s with existing, ‘found’ materials. Inspired by a city, a landscape, a special material or a current event. Through associative processes the models are created. Recognizable and yet alienating. She makes photographic and cinematic images of these self-built setups in her studio. The final artwork is usually a photograph or film. Recently she also combines films with installations or incorporates them into magical illusions.

Bethany builds her set in a large viewing box covered with mirrors. It usually starts with literally regenerating what she has seen, but eventually she lets go of reality and gives it her own interpretation, resulting in absurd fantasy worlds. Landscapes with bok choy and red cabbage as plants, castles of sugar cubes and interiors made of candy and candle wax with frogs and butterflies as protagonists. Wonderful worlds, alienating and humorous. Misleading too, objects and materials are not what they appear to be.

She wants people to think in the first instance that what they see is real/life-size. That is also her starting point. She recreates a scene in order to influence it. She bends a beautiful landscape with a boring sky to her will. Not necessarily to make it more beautiful, but more interesting ,a romantic representation.

In the Forests worlds, plants and animals often take center stage, as an eye-catcher in a colorful landscape with a rough edge. That does not necessarily make her work rosy, a threatening undertone is never far away. Current topics such as climate change, industrialization and urbanization play an increasingly important role in her themes.