Kiera Bennett | Studio Face | CHARLIE SMITH LONDON

About

Kiera Bennett continues her exploration of making paintings about the practice of painting, and the actions and emotions that accompany the process. Beginning by making repetitive line drawings, and then repeating the process when making the paintings themselves, Bennett relentlessly seeks to hone her line and form in order to arrive at an essence. This distillation replicates the process of depiction to abstraction that was so well refined by early 20th century Modernism, which in turn referenced perceived notions about early non-Western art.

Bennett's paintings contrast the Modernist dictum of objectification, however, in being highly personal abstractions (to varying degrees) of life in the studio or working en plein air in imagined landscapes. They might refer directly to artwork or artists that have influenced her, or with which she is preoccupied - Munch's sun paintings being a prime example. From cave painting to postmodernism via Picasso, Matisse, de Kooning and Guston, Bennett's reference points are broad, but are employed in a manner which can be unique only to her.

Singular formal elements are appropriated, or transcribed, and worked into an expansive composition. This is in combination with an emotional response to seeing and feeling the original work; making and digesting her own work; and re-imagining and depicting the process of making. And as a female artist working in a post-postmodern arena, Bennett is embracing, inhabiting and deconstructing the tradition of linear, white, male dominated Modernism.

The event will take place at CHARLIE SMITH LONDON, 336 Old Street, Shoreditch, London EC1V 9DR. Open from 11am-6pm Wednesday to Saturday. Please contact the gallery for further information on 020 7739 4055. Follow the gallery @CHARLIESMITHldn.

Category: Arts | Visual Arts | Galleries / Art.

Artist / Speaker: Kiera Bennett.

Twitter: https://go.evvnt.com/216468-2?pid=107