Archive for the figurative Category

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First Two Stages

Posted in abstract, Art, art on paper, Drawing, expressionism, expressionist, figurative, mixed media, monotype, nude, oil painting, Painting, printmaking, technique, Tom Bennett, Work in Progress, work on paper with tags , , , , , , , , , , on January 5, 2012 by Tom Bennett

Photos of the first stages of the process I’m exploring with these current reworked monotypes-to-paintings.
The monotype is an ancient relic from the early 90′s. Drawing over the image and reintegrating the underlying forms with the new marks, I then bring in paint of varying viscosities with brush and knife. The recontextualization of form may be overtly reconsidered or more likely metamorphosizes ‘organically’ (for lack of better pompous phrasing). Here much of the original is obliterated yet structurally the new image is recognizably built on form that is now rendered abstract. I’m away from my studio this week and won’t be reworking this until I get back, so this current unresolved stage will have to ferment like a soft wheel of gouda, also known as my head.

 

stage1male-female-1.jpg

 

 

 

stage2male-female.jpg stage 2

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Injected Meaning

Posted in abstract, Art, art on paper, expressionism, expressionist, figurative, mixed media, monotype, nude, oil painting, Painting, printmaking, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 29, 2011 by Tom Bennett

My apologies for the mediocre photo, I left my equipment in Baltimore over the Christmas holiday and was forced to use my iPhone.

Happy New Year. If you get wasted, hope its a good time.

Tom Bennett

Injected Meaning

Injected Meaning, monotype reintroduced with oil paint, on Rives BFK paper, 24″ x 18″

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Nice and Easy

Posted in Art, art on paper, expressionism, figurative, mixed media, monotype, nude, oil painting, Painting, printmaking, technique, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on December 22, 2011 by Tom Bennett

When taking monotypes and working back into them with other media, I intend to allow the under-print to be an integral part of the process and have a dialogue with the fresh mark making. With this piece I fear I have pushed to far with the paint and the literal form. The most overt area revealing the print is the space on the right with amorphous cell-like blobs. That said, I like the spotty abstracted relationships and may accept this as sort of a red-headed step child, even though she’s a brunette.

Tom Bennett

Wrong Turn

Nice and Easy, oil on monotype, rives bfk paper, 20″ x 16″

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Work in Progress: Konja

Posted in Art, art on paper, expressionist, figurative, mixed media, monotype, nude, oil painting, Painting, printmaking, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags , , , , , , , , , on December 15, 2011 by Tom Bennett

A monotype currently being revisited. Something about this makes me think of, remember fondly, my experiences in Turkey. I can’t tell you why.

WIP-Konja

WIP: Konja, 2003-2011, oil paint over oil based monotype on paper, 24″ x 18″

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Oil Paint Over Older Monotype: Age Before Beauty

Posted in abstract, Art, art on paper, expressionist, figurative, Miscellaneous, mixed media, monotype, nude, oil painting, Painting, printmaking, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags , , , , , , , , , , on November 24, 2011 by Tom Bennett

Happy Thanksgiving.

age before beauty

Age Before Beauty, 1993-2011, oil study into monotype on paper. 20″ x 16″

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Hedy

Posted in Art, art on paper, figurative, monotype, nude, oil painting, Painting, printmaking, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on November 17, 2011 by Tom Bennett

Leafing through the archives of not-quite successful prints, I came across a good candidate. I didn’t document it in its original stage, as I haven’t really done for most of the pieces in this series, but suppose I should. I will, however, search for a slide of it, which I am almost positive I have catalogued somewhere in the cave I call my studio.

I’m not isolating the printmaking paper with hide glue or gesso or anything. It should last at least until a meteor hits the earth, destroying civilization as we know it.

Hedwig's Spread Spectrum

Hedwigs’s Spread Spectrum, oil over monotype on paper, 20″ x 16″

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Anachronism

Posted in abstract, Art, art on paper, figurative, monotype, nude, oil painting, printmaking, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on November 3, 2011 by Tom Bennett

I’m writing this on the 2 V’s, vicodin and vodka, as I try to recover from a kick-arse flu.

This is an oil painting on paper.

Anachronism

Anachronism, oil paint over printmaking ink on paper, 20″ x 16″

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Mountains of the Bedroom

Posted in abstract, Art, art on paper, figurative, monotype, oil painting, printmaking, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags , , , , , , , , , on October 27, 2011 by Tom Bennett

Mountains of the Bedroom

oil into monotype on paper
30″ x 20″

Available for sale

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Submissive

Posted in Art, figurative, monotype, nude, oil painting, Painting, printmaking, technique, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags , , , , , , , , , , on October 20, 2011 by Tom Bennett

This is pending sale, pending on spending.

Submissive

Submissive, Oil over monotype on printmaking paper, 20″ x 16″

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Signed, Sealed and Delivered

Posted in Art, art on paper, art school, current events, events, exhibits, figurative, Miscellaneous, mixed media, monotype, nude, oil painting, openings, Painting, printmaking, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 6, 2011 by Tom Bennett

Silvermine Art Center in New Canaan, CT is organizing a fundraising event it has hosted for 10 years now, Signed, Sealed and Delivered. It’s an art sale and auction designed for collectors and art lovers featuring over 500 small, 4″ x 6″ original works in all media for sale at $50 each, to benefit the Center’s programs and outreach.

I’m contributing these 3 tiny paintings, all oil over monotype on Rives BFK printmaking paper. I rarely, if ever, paint this small with oil and I find it to be a disciplined exercise in control and direct manipulation of materials and form. Hellzalotta of fun.

Tom

ssd1

SSD 1, oil on monotype on paper, 6″ x 4″

ssd2

SSD 2, oil on monotype on paper, 6″ x 4″

ssd3

SSD 3, oil on monotype on paper, 4″ x 6″

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Paint, Print, Paper, Pigeon

Posted in Art, art on paper, figurative, monotype, nude, oil painting, Painting, printmaking, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags , , , , , , , , , , on September 22, 2011 by Tom Bennett

I’m continuing the exercise of painting over monotypes and I’m just exploring the application and reaction of the oil on printmaking paper. The paper is a medium to heavy weight Stonehenge brand and absorbs the oil paint and turps relatively quickly; the opposite of the method used in making the monotypes, since with the monos its about oil based paint and ink applied to plexiglass: no tooth nor absorption but simply a resistant glassy surface that the paint glides over. With painting directly on the paper, its about discovering the various lengths of time different paint films and colors tack up and how they interact with paint layers placed over them. I’m allowing and developing loose abstracted form with these early stages. Technically these could be called either paintings or monotypes, but you can call them anything you want. If it’s a four-letter word, I don’t really need to know about it.
Pigeon is old slang for a young woman, back when men were men and misogynist was a 10-letter word.
T.B.

Old Ruling Class 4 Revise

Old Ruling Class Revise, oil on monotype on paper, 20″ x 16″

The original monotype:

Old Ruling Class 4

there are many formal aspects of the print that I really like and have been changed and obliterated. Ah well. You must destroy to create to destroy again.

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Tastes like Chicken

Posted in Art, art on paper, figurative, monotype, nude, printmaking, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags , , , , , , , , on September 15, 2011 by Tom Bennett

I’m in Cape Cod this week and kind of stuck without proper art-making materials as I work fixing up a beach shack. I’m lying here while a chicken is cooking in the kitchen and the smells waft into my flared nostrils. I’m hungry and you’ll just have to deal with this older monotype from the pompously named “archives”.

tatses like chicken

Tastes Like Chicken (formally titled Untitled Figure #2), monotype, 14″ x 9″

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In the Auerbach of my Mind

Posted in abstract, Art, art on paper, figurative, male nude, mixed media, monotype, nude, oil painting, Painting, printmaking, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags , , , , , , , , on September 8, 2011 by Tom Bennett

Another reworked monotype. I was thinking about Frank Auerbach, the great british figurative expressionist. He’s one of the painters floating in the back of my head; his aggressive paint-slathering is of such a unique character it has hammered itself there into my sub-brain. My application isn’t mimicking his nor is it close, it’s the attitude he has with working and reworking this viscous medium until it practically destroys the surface and has to be scrapped down and rebuilt all over again. I’m having a great deal of fun exploring and tripping along with these old prints I made back at Robert Blackburn’s Printmaking workshop in Manhattan.

A Nod to Frank

A Nod to Frank, 1993-2011, oil paint on monotype on paper, 24″ x18″

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Dark Trade: New Coat of Paint for Old Print

Posted in Art, art on paper, figurative, gesture, male nude, mixed media, monotype, nude, oil painting, Painting, printmaking, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 1, 2011 by Tom Bennett

I’m continuing to take old and not particularly successful monotypes and reworking them with oil paint. It’s not quite working here perhaps because I haven’t resolved the relationship of the figure and its treatment with the breaking up of the picture plane. The shapes are not jiving, but I do like the figure.

Extended Right 1992-2011

Extended right, oil paint on monotype on paper, 1992-2011

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Sketches for Painting

Posted in abstract expressionism, Art, art on paper, Drawing, figurative, homage, mixed media, nude, oil painting, Painting, sculpture, technique, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags , , , , , , , on August 25, 2011 by Tom Bennett

One of the many themes I’ve worked on over the years is the male figure; in particular the male back, often inspired by classical painting and sculpture. I find The heightened muscular forms and volumes of figures created by renaissance and baroque artists like Michelangelo, Bandinelli and Caravaggio great subjects for abstraction and distortion. Many of the details of figures from antiquity, when looked at with an open perspective create vast conceptual worlds of abstracted landscape and space.

Here I’m making loose color studies as an exploration for larger finished pieces. Its an exercise in balancing control and accident on the way to discovering expressive formal, emotive and metaphysical paths. I’ve included an older oil painting I created years ago in Spain as one of the first forays into this area. It was based on sketches and watercolors I had done from a sculpture of Neptune in the Piazza Signoria in Florence.

herc

Herc, mixed media on paper, 12″ x 9″

signoria

Signoria, mixed media, 12″ x 9″

Barcelona Neptune, 1986, oil on canvas

Barcelona Neptune, 1986, oil on canvas, 48″ x 36″

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Portrait from the Archives

Posted in Art, figurative, Harry Bennett, oil painting, Painting, portrait, Tom Bennett with tags , , , , , , on August 11, 2011 by Tom Bennett

Working for the man much of this week so…..

Retrograde march down the halls of the past!

This is an oil painting I made of my dad Harry from the 20th century. (1998)

Portrait of Harry, oil on canvas, 1998

Portrait of Harry Bennett, 1998, oil on canvas, 20″ x 30″

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Insomniac Oil on Paper

Posted in Art, art on paper, figurative, mixed media, monotype, nude, oil painting, Painting, printmaking, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags , , , , , , , , on August 4, 2011 by Tom Bennett

Late the other night while I was half asleep I was slogging through my dungeon studio making monotypes. I pulled the final one which I decided had some interesting passages. A few days later I realized it was only salvageable by working back into it with more materials. I painted into this with more oil paint and varnish medium as well as various paint sticks of different viscosities. It’s not working completely; I’ll look at it again later in the week. She’s someone to take home to mom, huh?

The torpid stare is how I felt the other night in the dank sweltering basement, so maybe it has some validity after all.

Insomnia, oil  on Stonehenge paper, 20″ x16″

detail

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Oslo

Posted in Art, art on paper, Drawing, figurative, gesture drawing, mixed media, nude, Painting, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags , , , , , , , on July 28, 2011 by Tom Bennett

oslo

Oslo
india ink, benzyl ink, pencil, graphite and gouache on paper

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Salad days

Posted in Art, art on paper, Drawing, figurative, mixed media, portrait, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags , , , , , , on July 21, 2011 by Tom Bennett

Greens were eaten that hot day at the neighborhood bar in Carroll Gardens. She was amused that he had ordered a Greek Salad as the Japanese team brought honor to their distraught nation.

Salad Days

mixed media: graphite, pencil, goauche, benzyl alcohol ink, india ink

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Unconscious Crab Roll on the Beach

Posted in Art, art on paper, Drawing, figurative, gesture drawing, mixed media, nude, Painting, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags , , , , , , , on July 14, 2011 by Tom Bennett

Another quick sketch between lunch and the next thing.

I’m thinking about the cottage and the lobster and the sea. Not that this image necessarily says that.

crab roll

mixed media: pencil, graphite, ink, benzyl ink, gouache on paper; 9″ x 12″

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