The Nowness of Everything Tom Benjamin 22 MARCH - 30 MARCH 2014
ST ANNE’S GALLERIES
THE NOWNESS OF EVERYTHING At this season, the blossom is out in full now … and instead of saying ‘Oh that’s nice blossom’ … last week looking at it through the window when I’m writing, I see it is the whitest, frothiest, blossomest blossom that there ever could be, and I can see it. The nowness of everything is absolutely wondrous, and if people could see that, you know. There’s no way of telling you; you have to experience it, but the glory of it, if you like, the comfort of it, the reassurance. Not that I’m interested in reassuring people – bugger that. The fact is, if you see the present tense, boy do you see it! And boy can you celebrate it. Dennis Potter, 15 March 1994
Benjamin’s paintwork thinks very intently about this everyday mystery of openair vision: that whenever you’re seeing ‘something’, you’re usually at the same time seeing a whole lot of ‘nothing’. The scientific abstractions of ‘mass’ and ‘light’ become thrillingly immediate when you work on a canvas out of doors - especially if you plant your easel, as Benjamin often does, to face the Channel from England’s southern edge, addressing the way solid earth surrenders to liquid sea before evaporating altogether... Benjamin seeks out a poetry of atmosphere through a technique that proclaims how everything he is seeing is turning into oil paint. He looks to the moment when everything is brought together within that single condition. Thus harmonized, he says, ‘the picture at last begins to sing’. And singing is what matters. Julian Bell, 2012
THE STEINE BRIGHTON oil on board 20 x 25 cm
DAWN UMBRIA 2 oil on board 23 x 30 cm
DITCHLING ROAD BRIGHTON EVENING SUN (above) oil on board 30 x 23 cm
MEADOW IN UMBRIA (middle right) oil on canvas 41 x 56 cm
THE OUSE GLYNDE REACH EARLY SPRING (top right) SPRING (bottom right) oil on canvas 76 x 122 cm
oil on canvas 36 x 46 cm
FUENTE BUENA HIGH SUMMER oil on board 20 x 25 cm
CAROUSEL ON BRIGHTON BEACH oil on canvas 25 x 30 cm
LAKE EVENING
TREE IN SPRING (bottom left)
GLOUCESTER ROAD BRIGHTON (top right)
TREES BRIGHTON
(top left) oil on canvas 30 x 41 cm
oil on board 25 x 35 cm
oil on board 23 x 30 cm
oil on canvas 25 x 35 cm
(bottom right)
THE KOMEDIA BRIGHTON GREY LIGHT oil on board 20 x 25 cm
PATH THROUGH WOODS AT LES BASSACS
THE BRIGHTON DOME EVENING SUN
oil on canvas 25 x 30 cm
oil on board 20 x 25 cm
CLIFFS AT CUCKMERE AFTERNOON SUN
DAWN BRIGHTON SEAFRONT
LIMESTONE CLIFF LUBERON VALLEY
RIVER IN SPRING
(top left)
(bottom left)
(top right)
oil on canvas 23 x 30 cm
oil on canvas 25 x 35 cm
oil on canvas 41 x 56 cm
oil on canvas 76 x 122 cm
(bottom right)
BRIGHTON MID MORNING SUN oil on canvas 25 x 35 cm
SALT MARSHES AT WEST WITTERING WINTER oil on canvas 91 x 122 cm
WILLOW ON THE RAILWAY LAND MORNING oil on canvas 76 x 102 cm
TOM BENJAMIN Tom was born in 1967. He trained at Norwich School of Art, graduating in 1989. He lives in Lewes with his partner and three children. Tom is represented by St Anne’s Galleries/Sarah O’Kane Contemporary Fine Art. His work is in private and corporate collections across the UK as well as in the US, Japan and Europe. PREVIOUS GALLERY EXHIBITIONS St Anne’s Galleries Gallery 10 (London) The Anne Mei Chadwick Gallery (London) The Roy Miles Gallery (London) Charleston Farmhouse (Sussex) Star Gallery (Lewes) HQ Gallery (Lewes)
BLUE LIGHT FUENTE BUENA oil on board 20 x 25 cm
Exhibition available to view until 12 April 2014
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SARAH O’KANE CONTEMPORARY FINE ART
ST ANNE’S GALLERIES 111 HIGH STREET, LEWES, EAST SUSSEX BN7 1XY Mobile. 07777 691 050 Direct. 01273 407 119 sok@stannesgalleries.com www.stannesgalleries.com