Peter and Jane
The lost episodes...
an homage by Jon Bentley
on Bentley is an artist working in the Mivart Artists Studios in Bristol. "The
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surreal narrative that runs through my work is fed primarily by my dreams,
and like dreams tends to ask more questions than provide answers. Like many people of my generation I learned to read with Peter, Jane, Mummy and Daddy, not forgetting Pat the dog. As I struggled with the unfamiliar letters my child’s eyes where inexorably drawn to the pictures on the opposite page. Paintings full of strange details that drew you in and seemed to suggest a richer more mysterious narrative than the prosaic stories and dialogue on the written page. 45 years later I am drawn back to these images by a chance encounter in a second hand bookshop. Perhaps the paintings are etched particularly deep in my subconscious by their association with learning to read, which seemed to me as Jon Bentley tel: 0117 955 9956 mob: 07780 511522 email: info@jonbentley.co.uk or Valerie Hayes tel: 01656 881 033 mob: 07969 860540 email: valerie-183@hotmail.com
a child such a miraculous act; the ability to hear stories without anyone else being
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imagination as a child and continue to do so".
present. Leafing through the old familiar pictures I began to re-imagine them into the "lost episodes", an affectionately felt homage to the artists, Harry Wingfield, Martin Aitchison and John Berry who created the original paintings that ignited my
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â&#x20AC;&#x153;I have made my paintings into mocked up book form in order to exhibit them.â&#x20AC;? Jon Bentley Medium: Oil & Acrylic on MDF and Hardboard with archival digital print. Dimensions 31.7cm x 23.2cm
Photographed by Matt Divine