Artwork information

Minerva Betts is one of the pseudonyms associated with the New Zealand-based artist collective et al. Based at Christchurch in the initial period of their art production, Minerva Betts is primarily known for photographic work. Her image-making was ground-breaking in New Zealand because it questioned notions of portraiture and representation by allowing chance, spontaneity and performance to mutate appearance into what was unfamiliar while seemingly being based in a domestic context. She investigated a use of photography that mixed notions of the personal and the private with an underpinning of performance and collaboration. Their photographic approach formed images that are disquieting and occasionally disturbing through their use of a figure’s motion combined with slow camera shutter speed which made monochromatic images that are frequently blurred.