New Paintings (updated 3 June)

[Chris Bennett]

A bunch of new paintings from me. I'm trying to locate the figures in a sort of evocative space. In earlier paintings I was using simplification but trying to make it 'credible' by pushing things into a sort of hazy atmoshere. I have found this too limiting and need to find a way of including sharpness of form with ambiguity and simplification within a continuous whole. By breaking the overall realism I'm trying to find a way of 'turning on a sixpence' (Dime, if you are American!) within what an individual painting is trying to say and do.
Your comments are really appreciated as to where I have succeeded and where I have failed.

Time Traveller.



Letter.



Girl Tree.



Beach Volleyball.



Two Figures and an Observatory.



Sphinx at Night.



Head and Collar.



Letter (detail)

[eskanto]

It's always a pleasure to see your work Chris. I just wanted to ask, are you trying to break the human form into more abstract shapes and have it mingle with abstract background? My favorites are 'Girl Tree' and 'Head and Collar'. The shape of the girls back and legs flow nicely in the first one and in the other, the shapes and curvature of the hair, neck and shoulders is very graceful. Good work.

[TASmith]

Always impressive work. I enjoyed reading through your website awhile back and your process.

My two cents:

I like the Girl Tree most, maybe just because I'm a guy, but I enjoy following the many curves of her figure, contrasted by all the straight lines around her, especially the precarious balance of the pose, and wondering what she's doing. If it were real life I'd watch to see if something funny were about ot happen. That and the beach volleyball scene capture moments where you see the figure as she really is.

the very first painting probably has the most compositional elements - the most play of balance/etc, and it's enjoyable for that, plus the brushstrokes. The one profile portrait is enjoyable (head and collar) mostly for her closed eyed expression, and I really like the brushwork in the Sphinx - reminds me of a Turner at his best.

The only one I feel is a bit weak is the woman in blue with the letter. Too many straight lines for me, and possibly too abstract for me. Her head's too far away and small to get the most interest out of your technique and brushstrokes. Even with the closeup, comparing that to the profile portrait or the one at the top, you can see the difference in treatment, contrast, brush play, etc.

Anyone feel free to disagree.

EDIT: Oh I forgot to add, the one dark line on the volleyball player, the line under her chest, on her torso. It sticks out too much. I see you were leaving in some gesture lines from the prelim sketch. It works for her tummy, legs, and arms, but not there. It looks like some boob is hanging out, but it isn't clear, so it's kinda distracting. It could just be a bad photo of it, I don't know. If it's a fold of her skin its in a funny place and should be softened.

[eskanto]

The only one I feel is a bit weak is the woman in blue with the letter. Too many straight lines for me, and possibly too abstract for me.

That's exactly what I think works about that one. All those angular blue shapes. But then I tend to like abstract work.

[randolf]

I like "Sphinx at Night" because the paint itself works well in the diluted way you have put it down, and the way it glows as though lit from behind, and also how it envelops the forms. The edges in this one are confident and convincing, and really keep my attention. There is also a convincing mystery to this painting, as well as a good narrative element. I think this one is the most successful of your new works.

The blues and shapes and composition of "Letter" work very well, and the diluted paint is well realised here too. The letter the woman is holding might be a little too strong, though, in whiteness and in the sharpness of the shape - as though you have over-emphasized the punchline. Visually it is the least interesting element of this painting, even though, narratively it might be the most important. I would make the letter a much more tacit element.

"Two figures and an observatory" is also beginning to work, although the composition is a little obvious, which detracts from the mystery of the piece.

In your other works, I find the paint too thin without having a real purpose for being so diluted. The paint is chalky and the texture of the brush marks in the priming comes through rather unappealingly. There seems to be a lack of direction or focus. "Time Traveller" definitely need to be pushed much further. The paint, the idea, the composition needs to be thought about a lot more.

"Girl Tree" has a lot of promise, but it looks like it is very much in the beginning stages. It needs to be pushed, pulled, scraped, redone, destroyed, brought-back etc. (in the grand-old Slade, Royal College of Art etc. tradition).

Overall it looks like you are stopping too soon with these new pieces. There's not enough intellectual rigour, or real joy, even, with working the paint and ideas. Push yourself a bit more, and indulge your whims, your fetishes.

[donalfall]

These are really nice, remind me of Whistler or Hopper. Loving their soft, mysterious mood. Really nice website too btw. Great stuff.

[Chris Bennett]

eskanto: Thank you eskanto. In answer to your question;
I guess I'm not really trying to abstract the human form but rather find a way of incorporating it into a spacially ambiguous world that allows me to focus on the main thrust of what the image is 'about'. For example, I have this idea of someone holding a letter that has made them feel a touch melancholy but also a little hopeful perhaps or, as with 'Girl Tree' the feeling of taking a shower but also the freedom of being out in the sunshine of the world showing off a beautiful body. How do I turn these ideas into an actual shape? If they have an actual shape than they have a reality as an object rather than the illusion of something.
It is to do with trying to find real equivalents for evocations rather than using smoke or mist or out of focus techniques. Evocations that have a real shape, and thus be precise about ambivalence, nauance and evocation. I want the figures or bits of the figures to inhabit this world in a 'natural, fluent way, to be part of it, yet retain their naturalism without looking pasted on to an 'abstract' painting. Also this 'world' must swing between naturalism where it is wanted and evocation/abstraction as well.
I hope this answers your question - it would be interesting to hear your ideas.

TASmith: Thank you for your useful feedback, it is very much appreciated believe me. I'm glad you found the website interesting - it's due for a major design and content update very soon and it is good to know that people are getting something out of the text that appears, it is always hard to know how much to include.
You are right about the 'stray boob' - I hadn't noticed that! Too involved in getting that sand to reflect intense sunlight and work as a flat design in its own right. I'll respect her modesty and sort that bikini out in the original.
Very interested by your thoughts on 'Girl Tree' too. Thank you so much for taking the trouble to put down your thoughts so completely.

randolf: Like the others above, a very interesting piece of feedback regarding the work. The observation you made about not going quite far enough is a really tricky one to realise as I am sure you are fully aware. Your own splendid work shows a similar tussle with the magic of discoveries in the making of the image and the thirst for 'resolution'. It seems to me that the point at which these two things have equal power is the time that one is forced to stop. This is particularly problematic when pushing into new territory, since the question of resolution in an image has far less experiencial guides to help you when uncertain. It is as if you are building a glass bridge which you hope will turn into steel once you reach the other side of the river.
That said, I take your observation seriously and will be bearing it in mind.
Thank you again for such well thought out and extensive feedback to the work randolf.

donalfall: Whistler and Hopper! - two of my absolute favourite artists, yet utterly different and curiously connected. Whistler finds meaning in the paint and Hopper paint in the meaning.
All my work seems to be generated by 'mood' - it is the emergency that makes it happen. I guess I am trying to find a way of painting mood that can in some way make it more objective yet ambivalent at the same time. Something we see in Hopper and Whistler in entirely different ways.
Many thanks for that donalfall!

[saa]

Superb progress, Chris!

My favorites are head&collar, girl tree and letter, whereas letter stands out for me. I can really see you developing in that direction. Great stuff.

[Molly]

nice work chris, are these from reference?

mx

[Chris Bennett]

Jens: Thank you Jens, for looking in and all the encouragement!

saa: That's much appreciated saa, I'm glad that you see a development and good to hear what are your favourites in this regard. Letter, is the painting that is pushing the boundary the furthest for me - it is the one where I felt most uneasy yet most excited about whilst working on it. Letter, went through a lot of major changes before some 'magic' started to appear - I intend to do a larger version of this and see what happens as it turns into a sort of 'field painting', i.e. to see what happens when the big shapes are physically quite large in a big painting.

Molly: Thanks Molly. Girl Tree, Beach Volleyball and HeadandCollar are from reference, the others are entirely from my imagination.
With the reference, I made drawings and then made the paintings from the drawings without looking at the photo ref at all. Here they are:

[kev ferrara]

Hey Chris.

So... these are some interesting and admirably courageous experiments.

At a glance, I find that I am not quite convinced you are convinced about them. These are rather loose sneakers you are traipsing about in. What is the evocative mechanism you are using? Or, to put it another way, what is being evoked, from where, and for what purpose? In the past, we have discussed landscape "haunting" as a method of evocation. But that tended to be hidden personification gestalts. I'm not sure geometric abstraction can perform the same function.

I like the authority of the drawings.

Best,
kev

[Chris Bennett]

Kev Ferrara: Thanks Kev - you've put your finger on an important point, 'the evoking mechanism'. These are indeed formal experiments and as such I have tried to keep the 'evoking emergency' to a minimum in order to try and see what happens on a technical level.
To explain what I mean here are four paintings made over 3 years in the order they were painted:

Window Brides



Narcissus



Winter's Departure



Who's to Know?



Now, the first thing you notice is the steady sharpening of the silhouette whilst maintaining the simplification over the three years. What is gained in power is lost in in terms of evocation. The last image is getting very close to all out strip art which has yealded something extra whilst taking something away.
I guess the question I am asking myself is: 'Is there a way of combining the two approaches so that they can co-exist side by side in the same image - to have the particular and 'naturalistic' inhabit the same world as the symbolic sihouette. In practical terms how could I say 'forest' with just a green shape and 'the turn of a back' with the attention of a portrait? The abstract 'code' of drawing with the naturalism inference of painting?

As always Kev, you get to the heart of things.
Here is the most resent painting to date, (thinking of the great Bill Evans by way of Miles Davis):

Blue in Green:

[Priestley]

They're all good paintings, but this "Who's to know?" is too pretty and idyllic for my taste. The outlines flatten the picture, and so do the persistent horizontal and vertical lines. It is well executed. You certainly are very good at the horizontal and vertical lines. But it also seems too comfortable and that gives it a decorative feel.

"Narcissus" is undoubtedly my favorite. You ditched the outlines and gave us a dynamic angle. It's a very daring painting, and that really comes through from the way the car is handled awkwardly. You clearly challenged yourself and that makes the painting exciting. Bravo.

[emily g]

Chris, I LOVE the painting of the Blue in Green girl. It reminds me of a painting I saw by Malcolm Parcell--Helen (Portrait of a Girl) or The Blue Girl. I can't find it anywhere on the web but here is a link to another of his paintings of the same model.

The skin tone is lovely, especially contrasted with the blue of the dress and the black hair. Her left foot is ok and appears to be partially hidden by the dress, but her right foot needs just a bit more to establish that it's a foot. Otherwise, it's looking too much like the tree trunk next to it.

[TheNightPainter]

Seem like you haven't even paid iStockphoto... God bless the google
;-)

[Chris Bennett]

Priestley: Thanks Priestley, The painting 'Who's to Know' is a year old now and was painted for my publisher who are always on at me to 'do romantic'. You are right about 'Narcissus' being the more adventurous painting - I never quite got that front wheel right though! In fact a lot of my pictures were from high angles at one time and I tend to visualise things habitually this way, it's sort of a way of seeing things with the most informative three dimensional understanding.

emily g: It's always good to hear from you Emily and particularly getting a nod of approval from somebody with such exacting standards. Thank you so much for that link, extremely interesting - I have not come across this artist before but they have gone straight into my 'inspirational pictures file' and I will be now 'on the lookout' for more of his work.
You are right about that foot - I know at the time I could not make my mind up whether to make it appear as if it where the sole of her foot as she steps away or rather to have it slightly awkardly grounded. So I left it slightly ambivalent thinking I it would come to me which way to go after turning the painting to the wall for a week or so. I simply ended up getting used to it that way - but it does need sorting, I simply cannot get off the fence about it!
I hope your studies with Whittaker studio are still going well.

TheNightPainter: The painting is significantly different from the photograph, it is a tiny painting and I may not even exhibit it - istock will survive I think. Thanks for looking by though.

[michaelh]

Great work but they don't remind me of Whistler or Hopper.

[kelly x]

I actually think your era is like Edward Hopper and your pallet is Pierre Bonard and the dry brush is both (I would like to know who your favorite artist is??) -- my two fav's in the world -- your thread is the most informative thank you for all of the info on compositions ... read and re-read this. I am giving stars for this body of work!!

[johanflod]

I like the Narcissus one the most and I guess it is the human factor in it. if something in the painting is right when it comes to perspective etc and something is wrong it gives a nice contrast. Maybe it is even the flow of the lines in it I like.

[Chris Bennett]

michaelh: Whistler and Hopper are a big influence but I hope they have been 'assimilated' - so you not seeing them in the work is a positive thing. I'm glad you like the work, many thanks Michael.

Kellyx: Interesting that you pick up on the dry brush thing; I find that acrylic works best for me if it is used in a series of thin layers, because it lacks the 'guts' or body of oil paint when dry. To avoid the water colour look I incorporate a dry brush technique which also gets around the problem of achieving subtleties without too much effect from the colour and tone shift on drying. I think of it as a sort of water based pastel. (This is probably where the Bonnard thing comes in)
Favourite artist? Each one of my art books is a sort of tombstone to the enthusiasm I've had for various painters. However, an Irish painter called Mark Shields always knocks me out. Temperamentally I'm probably closest to Whistler in how I think about paint and surface. However, I've always had a soft spot for pop art, Hockney and the directness and full on sensuality of pin-up art.
Thanks for the stars Kelly! and I'm glad you got so much from the composition thread - I'll try and get something going with that again with some new themes. By-the-way, that gallery of yours and its approach to things looks really interesting, I agree with much of what it stands for.

johanflod: Thank you, Narcissus is indeed the most dramatic piece. The recent experiments have involved supressing the dramatic in order to solve some formal ideas I am trying to solve regarding my painting's language.
Painting seems to work best for me when there is some sort of implied narrative. The work I have posted below is reintroducing this now that I have solved a few things with the last 5 or 10 paintings.

Here are two new pictures that are bringing back the sense of narrative to the work but using some of the discoveries of my recent experiments. The motivation behind them is once again to tell an implied story and create a definite evocation but using the clearer means I have been developing of late and avoiding an overall haziness to achieve 'mood'.

Pepsy.



Pepsy (detail)



Hi Fly.

[pazur]

I especially like 4 first ones and last 2. I prefer Your more "hard edge" form sculpting to those more round and soft ones. I like transparent brushstrokes too, like Pepsy background (which has great color too).

[Serpian]

I like Pepsy. It's cute. I like her expression and that beautiful dress. The only small problems I see in that picture are that I think the hands could be refined more, and the part of the bench that you sit on doesn't really read as its in another plane than the back piece.

Hi Fly, well.. I don't know. Compared to Pepsy its a bit static and boring. Sure, in Pepsy the girl is in the middle as well, but it works much better there. Hi Fly looks as if it tries to be dynamic, but is hindered by the placement of the girl right in the middle of the canvas.


Never the less, these experiments are really interesting, keep trying out new things!

[picksel]

hi,i like to see the details of the brushes painting , it's gives more expression

[Stoat]

Nice work, as usual. But I thought the idea was to move away from fine art and more toward illustration...? It's been a while, so perhaps I'm misremembering the conversation, but these strike me as progressively fine artier.

Not complaining, just bemused.

[archipelago]

I love your stuff

[Chris Bennett]

pazur: Thanks for the feedback pazur. Certainly the transparent painting is here to stay with me - but how far to go with hard edges is still a problem; getting the right balance is crucial to me at the moment.

Serpian: Thanks for dropping by Serpian and your thoughts are much appreciated. Yes, Hi Fly is very minimal. There is a little something there and I was trying to see just how far I could pare things down yet still keep a sense of drama - the tilt of the balcony is all you need to tell you that you are looking upwards etc etc. Glad you like Pepsy - it is quite a small painting (35cm x 45cm) so the hands detail on your screen is possibly even larger than the original painting. Good to hear your take on things though!

picksel: Thanks, the 'handwriting' on the originals becomes much more sensuous on the originals - a quality that you only pick up from the close-up details I'm afraid.

Stoat: Hi Stoat! Have you move to Ye Olde England yet?
Well, the illustration thing is still very much on the cards but I'm working on getting my strengths in the fine art stuff to work for me. I figured out that if I simply switched to a fantasy subject matter I would: a) Be somewhat behind those already doing it regarding its conventions etc etc and b) Having a body of work that had nothing to do with what I am known for. Anyway, somebody here (Dooneboy I think) told me to have a look at Brad Holland since they felt my work reminded them of him. When I saw it I realised that what I could bring to the field was already within what I was doing. Tristan Elwell also said that the work, just as it was, could be pushed over to the illustration field with hardly any change. Add to this that my publishers are always saying that the public prefer the stuff with an implied story the penny finally dropped. It's meant that I've had to delay my website revamp because a lot of work I was doing in readiness for a fantasy art angle cannot really be used and this meant a slight re-jigging of the look of the site as well. Anyways I hope you are enjoying your new home in......Devon was it?

archipelago: Succinct and to the point - but much appreciated. Thank you!

Here's some Tarts I'm giving out by way of thankyou for all the feedback:

Knave of Hearts (22cm x 28cm)

[TASmith]

This is a tad off topic, but Ive been looking at alot of art on the net, and I came across this other artist I respect alot. I recently asked him for a crit and he said this,

"make lots of pictures and don't think of the results.
Fall in love with your own marks and style."

I thought it was funny because it's (in some ways) the opposite of the Concept Art approach, and particularly your works, process, and thread here. And, I think it works for him. I'm not saying one way is better, just that it makes for an interesting contrast. Here's his work:

http://staatsf.deviantart.com/

[Chris Bennett]

TASmith: That's a very interesting observation and having looked at his work it brings up an important point:
Staatsf's work involves a commitment to the celebration of 'the moment' and the stress on the mark's taking the strain of the whole meaning of each painting. No 'moment' or mark made thereof is better than the next - there is no editing involved and everything put down is trusted as it stands as a carrier wave of the nervous system. This means that each painting stands or falls on how authentic and sensitive and 'in tune' the artist is throughout the whole painting process - one false move and all is lost. Paintings made in this way derive their beauty and meaning in much the same way we delight in an acrobat or dancer making a fautless, graceful series of moves. They are essentially improvisations and have the power and the drawbacks of that approach.
I think that most of us in CA do not find this a workable approach in the context of work to commission and is possibly the reason you do not find much work like this here. In my own case, the methods I use have to be adaptable to portraiture as well as being an answer to my particular temperament. I have made work in this way, but it has extremely limited applications outside a certain commercial sphere.

However, those words of his are very true - it is just that you must find a way to apply them within a commercial sphere that includes briefs, deadlines, public demand and sustainability of quality. All the headaches that come with being a professional I'm sure you'll agree.
Thanks again for the link, extremely fascinating.

[Serpian]

To be honest, I didn't actually realise that i was looking up at a balcony... I thought of it as some sort fo concrete railing along a not so steep flight of stairs.

Thanks for the tarts, by the way. They're delicious.

[Stoat]

Sussex. And, no. I'm still trying to sell a crappy house in a bad neighborhood in America. Cheap!

Just floating this nice thread to the top