My creative practice is embedded in a curiosity and a questioning of the spaces we encounter every day, both physical and temporal. The different states of being and experiences they elicit; often resulting in anxieties produced by current social and environmental concerns. Mining investigations into philosophy, sociology, psychology, and pop culture, my work relies on producing shared experiences to connect with others. This has led me recently to reflect on these spaces with explorations of time, place, labor/work, care, and motherhood with a focus on fusing digital and more traditional media in an expanded manner.

My current installation and video work is a consideration of care and the work involved in motherhood, the work of being an artist, how to work at both, and how this suggests concerns of care for the environment for future generations. This includes an ongoing series in which I perform durational tasks using a five-gallon bucket filled with natural materials—water, salt, or stones—matching the weight of my young daughter. These works began during residencies, when I was away from my family and home, and have since evolved, especially during the pandemic, to reflect how these roles shift in unexpected and sometimes demanding ways. The settings of the videos look to both the natural and constructed landscapes as a means to interact with and reflect on both, culminating in new considerations of how video is viewed and expanding on methods of presentation.

Bethany Engstrom is an artist, curator, and educator living and working in Belfast, Maine. She received a BA in Art History 2002, her MFA in Intermedia in 2011 and Interdisciplinary PhD in Intermedial Collaborative Practices in 2014, each from the University of Maine.

Engstrom’s recent work utilizes objects, installation, audio, and video, focusing on how these materials can express ideas of time, care, environment, labor/work, and motherhood. She has participated in residencies at the Volland Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, Hewnoaks Artist Colony, Ellis-Beauregard Foundation and Mildred’s Lane. She recently had a solo exhibition at the University of Maine Farmington Art Gallery and her work has been included in group exhibitions at the Farnsworth Art Museum, Newport Art Museum, Newport, Rhode Island; Gallery 263, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Collar Works in Troy, New York; Parsonage Gallery, Searsport, Maine; Speedwell Contemporary and Cove Street Arts in Portland, Maine; Asymmetrick Arts and the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockland, Maine; Waterfall Arts in Belfast, Maine and the University of Maine. Engstrom is the recipient of the Kindling Fund, part of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts’ Regional Regranting Program.

Engstrom is a part-time Assistant Professor of Art in the Intermedia MFA program at UMaine and an adjunct Lecturer of Visual Arts at the University of Maine Augusta and has taught at Bowdoin College and Unity College. Formerly Associate Curator at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockland, Maine, and recently the Managing Director of SPEEDWELL Contemporary in Portland, Maine, she is co-founder and director of the Performance Art Initiative in Maine. She is currently the 2026 Maine Art Commission Fellow in Media Arts.