Archive for the gesture Category

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They Might be Giants

Posted in abstract, Art, art on paper, expressionism, expressionist, figurative, gesture, monotype, narrative art, Painting, printmaking, technique, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags , , , , , , , , , , on February 9, 2012 by Tom Bennett

Unless you’ve been having a pedicure under a rock the last few days, you’ll know the football NY Giants beat the NE Patriots to win the superbowl for the 2nd time in 4 years. Without going into an analysis of the season and the game itself and bore most of you, I’ll just say, as a New Yorker, this team is cardiac-arrest-fun with its habit of coming back from the dead and pulling out a win at the last minute.

Mario Manningham came up with, arguably perhaps, the game-changing catch along the sideline. The play was expressionist in its execution.

Tom Bennett

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Manningham, monotype, 20′ x 16″

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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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Making Art is All About the 4 year-old.

Posted in "But Is It Art?", Art, art on paper, Drawing, gesture, mixed media, technique, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags , , , , , , , , on June 30, 2011 by Tom Bennett

I’m tired and when I’m tired I throw stuff down on paper and slop it around, pretending that my subconscious has something to do with the chaotic garbage that is left.

But is it art?

Humans are full of sh*t , huh?

PIG, mixed media on paper, 11″ x 7″

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Sea Creature

Posted in abstract, Art, art on paper, figurative, gesture, landscape, monotype, printmaking, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags , , , , , , , , , , on June 9, 2011 by Tom Bennett

It’s the beginning of what many climatologists say is a long period of climate change and hot summers in this hemisphere. Its hot here in New York and I wearily prepare for the heavy clammy dampness and the heat and the high electrical bills. So this image is a mild  counteractive to that. I am thinking of Cape Cod Bay and its temperate tone , yet the warm yellow may mitigate even this attempt at the cool.

Tom

Pilgrimage

Pilgrimage, 2011, monotype, 16″ x 20″

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Represent.

Posted in Art, art on paper, Drawing, figurative, gesture, gesture drawing, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags , , , , , , , , on March 31, 2011 by Tom Bennett

From the NYC subway, yet again.

T.B.

sub 3-30 d

sub 3-30 a

sub 3-30 c

sub 3-30 b

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Drawing with Harry Christmas 2010

Posted in Art, art on paper, Drawing, figurative, gesture, Harry Bennett, portrait, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags , , , , , , , on December 30, 2010 by Tom Bennett

Spent Christmas with the extended Bennett family and got a little drawing in with my dad. Our Miss Tiller posed, not that you’d know it by my drawing. Harry is still fresh and fluid, of course.

Below, sketches by Harry Bennett. ink on paper. Towson, MD, 12/2010

My drawings after the jump.

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The Ice Woman Cometh

Posted in Art, art on paper, Drawing, figurative, gesture, mixed media, nude, Painting, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags , , , , , , , , on December 16, 2010 by Tom Bennett

The dead of winter is upon us here in the Northeast. But I’m free from the corporate chains I’ve been carrying, at least for a little while.
Now I can whip myself back into painting full time. Flagellation, begin!
In the meantime, here’s a trifling mixed media drawing on paper.

Darkness Falls(

Darkness Falls
india ink, graphite, letraset ink and gouache. 9″ x 12″

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Pole Dance

Posted in Art, art on paper, Drawing, figurative, gesture, mixed media, nude, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags , , , , , , on December 9, 2010 by Tom Bennett

The figure in a dance of distortion. ink and graphite with gouache on paper. 11″ x 8.5″

Elin Pole 12-10 (L)

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One Must Make Sacrifices…

Posted in Art, art on paper, figurative, gesture, monotype, printmaking, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags , , , , , , on December 2, 2010 by Tom Bennett

This piece could be a comment on the current state of the world economy and its effects. Or a statement on the wrath of scorned women. Maybe just the fact that the old testament is one bloody violent book.
Suggested by Carravaggio’s Judith Beheading Holofernes.

Holofernes is Expendable (L)

Holofernes is Expendable.
monotype, 12″ x 18″, oil, etching inks, paint stick ,

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Nude study. (and a blog post about Harry)

Posted in Art, art on paper, figurative, gesture, Harry Bennett, Illustration, nude, oil painting, Painting, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags , , , , , , , , , , , on October 28, 2010 by Tom Bennett

A mixed media study:

10/27/10 nude
ink, graphite, gouache on paper, 10 x 14

….and more stuff about my dad. He deserves it. A fine and fun blog out of England called Existential Ennui(<click in the hyperlink) pays tribute to him and his paperback book art. The blogger, Louis XlV, even mentions our blog.
Tom Bennett

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The Man with a Getaway Face, 1963, Pocket Books division of Simon and Schuster

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Drawing with Harry: A visit to the V.A.

Posted in Art, art on paper, figurative, gesture, Harry Bennett, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags , , , on September 30, 2010 by Tom Bennett

I’m down in Maryland taking care of my parents while my sister is in South America for a week or so. She apparently thought it would be nice to spend every day at a different doctor’s office. One appointment a day. My dad takes his drawing book to the Veteran’s Administration medical center and draws vet patients in the waiting room. One day a woman who he had been drawing looked at his sketch and said, “You should go into the business.” He’s 91, and spent World war ll in the South Pacific jungles as a reconnaissance officer, before spending the rest of his life as an artist.

I apologize for some of the poor photo quality.

These are Harry Bennett’s drawings:

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Here I drew Harry contemplating lunch.

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Grind

Posted in abstract, Art, art on paper, Drawing, gesture, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags , , , , , , , on July 7, 2010 by Tom Bennett

Due to the grind of a daily schedule, I haven’t been able to create new work over the last couple of weeks outside of sketchbook drawing. These folks feel the grind as well.

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The Interior of My Head in the Tunnel

Posted in Art, Drawing, figurative, gesture, technique, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags , , , , , , , on July 1, 2010 by Tom Bennett

drawings from the subway cars and the subway platform.

28b

25b

28a

28c

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A Return to the Subway

Posted in Art, art on paper, Drawing, figurative, gesture, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags , , , , , , , , , on June 24, 2010 by Tom Bennett

Back on the underground trains between Brooklyn and Manhattan. Ah, the scent of garbage and urine baking in the heat. Thank god there’s air conditioning in 95% of the cars. All ink on paper, 9″ x 6″.
TB

10 b

10 a

10 c

10 d

other sketches:

dog

kalman

kalman

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Pompeii

Posted in Art, art on paper, figurative, gesture, monotype, nude, printmaking, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags , , , , , , , on June 3, 2010 by Tom Bennett

I titled this study Pompeii after I pulled it and realized much of the ink application had been light, thin and allowed to tack up too long, creating this sparse ghost like image with a lot of the white of the paper taking over. The image said to me, “decay in situ”, and volcanos had been on my mind earlier today for some reason. The heavier gauge stonehenge printmaking paper doesn’t absorb water as quickly and has to be soaked for a longer period as well.

larger detail after the jump.

Tom Bennett

pompeii

Pompeii, 2010, monotype, 28″ x 18″

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Gratuitous Laziness

Posted in Art, art on paper, figurative, gesture, male nude, monotype, nude, printmaking, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags , , , , , , , on May 5, 2010 by Tom Bennett

I’m a contradiction. I work very hard and I am lazy. I have a deep desire for luxury and comfort: whether its an old drafty shack on Cape Cod or a Parisian 5 star Hotel, as long as I can sleep and play the lay-about. Until, of course, my buried catholic-induced guilt and Swedish-bred work ethic kick me in the ass.
Here is a monotype in a series of self-portraits as a beached ne’er-do whale.
Tom Bennett

Eternal Limbo(L)

Monotype, 18″ x 28″, based on photos by Toni Tiller

Eternal Limbo (detail)
detail

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What do you Expect? A Baby?

Posted in Art, art on paper, Drawing, figurative, gesture, mixed media, monotype, nude, Painting, portrait, printmaking, Tom Bennett, Work in Progress, work on paper with tags , , , , , , , , , on March 31, 2010 by Tom Bennett

More images of my  friend Lauren, who is about to give birth any moment now. I really think she’s going to be a great mother. She’s smart and tireless and focused and kind. Not to me, but I’m a PITA. Pain in the ass.

Here are some really loose monotypes, each about 18″ x 12″. I’m not satisfied with the emotion these prints are evoking at this point, so I’ll keep working.  I’ve been continuing with graphite and ink with color wash drawings, which you can check out after the jump.

LP 2, monotype

LP 1, monotype

For the drawings, click here:

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Lucky

Posted in Art, art on paper, Drawing, figurative, gesture, geture drawing, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags , , , , , , , on March 4, 2010 by Tom Bennett

I sometimes wonder what place my semi-dispassionate nature and the circumstances of my life have in the creation of my art. I had been lucky enough to have been born into a stable family with loads of support and, outside of the average run-of-the mill crisis, I haven’t spent a lot of time in an emotionally  perilous state. No such stridently awful moments in adolescence that would see me trying to purge my demons as an adult,  and so my psychological state has been in balance.  How does this play out in my art-making? I do know that there is a lot of subconscious murk buried deep inside, I just don’t spend enough time consciously examining it; I make paintings instead. I’m thinking about this because I’ve known so my artists in my life who have struggled with psychological or emotional pain – real, imagined and self-inflicted, and I ask myself  how this informs the art. Does it make that art more emotionally and intellectually valid than mine?

Oh christ,  I apologize if this commentary is coming off a bit adolescent. Hey, I’m 10.

Oooookay… anyhoo, posted here are some drawings from the subway and one drawing I pulled out of my a– eh, my subconscious.


Subway, 3/01/10-A, pen and ink and benzyl

Subway, 3/02/10-A, pen and ink and benzl


Subway, 3/02/10-B,  pen and ink, benzyl ink

Subconscious Image of a Figure, pencil, india ink, benzyl ink

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Extemporaneous Nudes

Posted in Art, art on paper, Drawing, figurative, gesture, mixed media, nude, technique, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags , , , , , , , , on February 25, 2010 by Tom Bennett

I have a number of different sets of work going on with various mediums and treatments. Sometimes its based on what I have available to me in materials and space. Lately I’ve been spending my days in a tight space in Manhattan doing illustration and when I have spare time I’ve been working on these little improvised sketches using pencil, graphite, benzyl-alcohol based inks, india ink and sometimes a little water. I allow the materials to react and keep the editing to a tight minimum. These are often more fun and exciting than a fully “realized” finished painting. And it’s my nature to luxuriate in fun and excitement. I guess thats also why I love fleshy female form. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

Houri

Houri, pencil, ink on paper, 12″ x 9″

Adumbration

Adumbration, pencil, ink on paper, 9″ x 12″

more after the jump

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Kinky Nude: Symbol through Distortion

Posted in andre kertesz, Art, gesture, monotype, nude, printmaking, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags , , , , , , , on January 20, 2010 by Tom Bennett

Here I revisit my torqued figure monotypes suggested by the early twentieth century photographer Andre Kertesz.
I see the distortion as a symbolic response to the organic molecular liquidity of the form.

I’d say “enjoy”, but that would be presumptuous. I, for one, am open to any criticism or mud-slinging.
Or you can simply buy me dinner and a movie.

Tom Bennett
Elegy to Kertesz 4 1/10

Elegy to Kertesz 4, 2010,  monotype, 12″ x 12″


detail

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