Happy Thanksgiving.
Age Before Beauty, 1993-2011, oil study into monotype on paper. 20″ x 16″
Archive for the oil painting Category
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 abstract, Art, expressionist figure painting, figurative painting, figure, mixed media, monotype, nude, Painting, printmaking, Tom Bennett on November 24, 2011 by Tom BennettHedy
Posted in Art, art on paper, figurative, monotype, nude, oil painting, Painting, printmaking, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags abstract, Art, expressionist nude, figure, mixed media, monotype, nude, oil over monotype, oil painting, Painting, paper, Tom Bennett on November 17, 2011 by Tom BennettLeafing 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.
Hedwigs’s Spread Spectrum, oil over monotype on paper, 20″ x 16″
Anachronism
Posted in abstract, Art, art on paper, figurative, monotype, nude, oil painting, printmaking, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags abstract, Art, figure, mixed media, monotype, nude, NYC, oil paint on monotype, oil painting, Painting, printmaking, Tom Bennett on November 3, 2011 by Tom BennettI’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, oil paint over printmaking ink on paper, 20″ x 16″
Mountains of the Bedroom
Posted in abstract, Art, art on paper, figurative, monotype, oil painting, printmaking, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags Art, figure, nude, oil on paper, oil over monotype, oil painting, Painting, paper, printmaking, Tom Bennett on October 27, 2011 by Tom Bennett
oil into monotype on paper
30″ x 20″
Available for sale
Submissive
Posted in Art, figurative, monotype, nude, oil painting, Painting, printmaking, technique, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags Art, dominant, figure, mixed media, monotype, nude, oil on paper, Painting, printmaking, submissive, Tom Bennett on October 20, 2011 by Tom BennettThis is pending sale, pending on spending.
Submissive, Oil over monotype on printmaking paper, 20″ x 16″
Cole in Yer Stocking
Posted in Art, awesome, oil painting, Painting, Tom Bennett with tags Art, destructuction, empire, figure, oil painting, Painting, thomas cole, Tom Bennett on October 13, 2011 by Tom BennettI’ve been away without art materials so I have nothing but this image of a painting by the 19th century painter Thomas Cole to post. It’s part of a series called The Course of an Empire, this being “Destruction”. As far as I’m concerned, its as good a symbol of the fate of contemporary western culture as any. Later, it’s my bed-time.
The Course of an Empire: Destruction
Tommy Cole
Nice futurist hair-do.
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 exhibit, figurative painting, figure, fundraising event, mixed media, monotype, nude, nude woman, oil on paper, oil painting, Painting, paper, printmaking, Silvermine Arts Center, small paint, Tom Bennett on October 6, 2011 by Tom BennettSilvermine 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
SSD 1, oil on monotype on paper, 6″ x 4″
SSD 2, oil on monotype on paper, 6″ x 4″
SSD 3, oil on monotype on paper, 4″ x 6″
Paint, Print, Paper, Pigeon
Posted in Art, art on paper, figurative, monotype, nude, oil painting, Painting, printmaking, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags Art, figure, monotype, monotype printmaking, nude, oil on monotype, oil on paper, Painting, paper, printmaking, Tom Bennett on September 22, 2011 by Tom BennettI’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 Revise, oil on monotype on paper, 20″ x 16″
The original monotype:
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.
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 abstract, Art, figure, Frank Auerbach, monotype, oil paint on monotype, Painting, printmaking, Tom Bennett on September 8, 2011 by Tom BennettAnother 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, 1993-2011, oil paint on monotype on paper, 24″ x18″
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 abstract, Art, art on paper, boxing, figure, male nude, monotype, oil on paper, oil painting, Painting, paper, printmaking, Tom Bennett on September 1, 2011 by Tom BennettI’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, oil paint on monotype on paper, 1992-2011
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 abstract, Art, color sketch, Drawing, Painting, sculpture, study, Tom Bennett on August 25, 2011 by Tom BennettOne 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, mixed media on paper, 12″ x 9″
Signoria, mixed media, 12″ x 9″
Barcelona Neptune, 1986, oil on canvas, 48″ x 36″
Portrait from the Archives
Posted in Art, figurative, Harry Bennett, oil painting, Painting, portrait, Tom Bennett with tags Archives, Art, harry bennett, oil on canvas, Painting, portrait, Tom Bennett on August 11, 2011 by Tom BennettWorking 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 Bennett, 1998, oil on canvas, 20″ x 30″
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 Art, figure, insomnia, oil on paper, oil paint on monotype, Painting, paper, printmaking, Tom Bennett on August 4, 2011 by Tom BennettLate 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
An Ex-Soldier and Painting
Posted in abstract, Art, figurative, Harry Bennett, homage, nude, oil painting, Painting, plein air, Tom Bennett with tags abstract, Art, figure, harry bennett, homage, landscape, memorial day, Painting, plein air, Tom Bennett, Towson, world war 2 on June 2, 2011 by Tom BennettI’m spending a week care-taking my parents. My father Harry painted through memorial day weekend.
Harry was a reconnaissance officer in the south pacific throughout World War 2. Rarely talks about it nor his bronze star medal for bravery. He is a very special man.
His painting above. oil on board, 16″ x 20″ He may still want to tweak it a little. I think he should call it Memorial Day.
Mom and Dad.
I realized how much I miss talking painting with him and his thoughtful insight. He took a look at a painting I started months ago and gave me some valuable input on design and rhythm.
This is it:
Daughters (revise) oil on glue gesso board, 20″ x 26″
Work in Progress Painting
Posted in Art, figurative, nude, oil painting, Painting, Tom Bennett with tags dante divine comedy, figure, harry bennett, heavy nude, nude, oil on panel, oil painting, Painting, Tom Bennett, Work in Progress on May 12, 2011 by Tom BennettWork in progress, another in the series “Old Ruling Class”.
The support is a cradled masonite board treated with a white clay ground, which produces a nice balanced surface that is both a resist and absorbing platform which allows me to do reductive mark-making with tools such as a razor blade, which is a technique my father, Harry, used to great effect in a number of projects such as his Divine Comedy series.
Harry celebrates his 92nd birthday this weekend. Happy Birthday, Dad!
Old ruling Class 5, wip
oil on board, 24″ x18″
Sexual Assault Can Lead to Liver Damage
Posted in Art, homage, male nude, nude, oil painting, Painting, Tom Bennett with tags abstract, allegory, Art, baroque, expression, figure, homage, male nude, nude, oil painting, Painting, punishment, retribution, symbolist painting, titian, Tityus, Tom Bennett on May 5, 2011 by Tom BennettTityus was the Greek mythological character who was put to death for assaulting a daughter of Zeus and sentenced to be eternally chained in the great pit of Tartarus, a greek version of hell, while his liver (thought to hold passionate emotion, ie, anger) was gnawed at by vultures and snakes. This story of eternal struggle and retribution is similar to the Prometheus myth and in ways to the narrative of Sisyphus. Titian apparently loved this line of metaphor; he made paintings of all of these subjects. Last year I made a monotype based on his Sisyphus.
I see existential analogies between ancient myth and the contemporary human condition and have always been intrigued by the dark gothic drama of baroque allegorical art. Here I’ve taken multiple images from allegorical paintings and overlapped them, searching for some kind of combination of grace, jaggedness and abstracted puzzlement.
As with any just completed piece I post, I’m still pondering adjustments.
Considering the connection to sclerosis and retribution, I’ve invented a new drink, The Bin Laden: 2 shots and a splash of water. (apologies to the ultra sensitive)
Thanks, I’ll be here all week. Enjoy the veal.
Tom Bennett
Weekend at Tartarus, oil on panel, 28″ x 48″
detail
detail
Commitment and Non-Commitment
Posted in abstract, Art, art on paper, figurative, monotype, oil painting, Painting, printmaking, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags abstract, Art, figure, monotype, monotype printmaking, nude, Painting, printmaking, Tom Bennett on April 28, 2011 by Tom BennettTwo recent monotypes and a painting. The painting is in a stage of quasi-resolution in a process.
Tom Bennett
Spring 2, 2011, monotype, 16″ x 20″
Spring 1, 2011, monotype, 16″ x20″
Non-Committal, 2011, oil on panel, 18″ x24″
The Old Ruling Class 4 and Art of the Northeast
Posted in abstract, Art, art on paper, events, exhibits, figurative, homage, monotype, nude, oil painting, Painting, printmaking, Tom Bennett, work on paper with tags art exhibits, Art of the Northeast, exhibit, monotype, nude, Painting, printmaking, Silvermine Guild, Tom Bennett on April 14, 2011 by Tom BennettI haven’t been in my printshop in weeks so when I found myself with some time the other night I crawled into my basement, where the etching press is located and made some images. I used some lower grade oil paint along with the professional grade inks and came up with an almost realized print. When it was dry I went back into it with oil sticks. I’m placing it into the series of nudes I started a couple of months ago.
The Old Ruling Class 4, monotype, 20″ x16″
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Art of The Northeast
The annual regional survey “Art of the Northeast”, representing artists from New England, New York and New Jersey, is up again at The Silvermine Arts Center in New Canaan, CT. http://www.silvermineart.org/about-silvermine/directions.cfm
I have this painting in the show. It’s a take on Caravaggio’s The Crucifixion of St. Peter.
The juror this year is Tom Eccles, Executive director, Bard College, Curatorial Studies Program.
The opening is this Saturday, 4PM to 7PM
Pete’s Going Away, 2011, oil on panel, 40″ x 30″
Abduction and Marriage
Posted in abstract, Art, figurative, homage, narrative art, nude, oil painting, Painting, rape, technique, Tom Bennett, Work in Progress with tags abstract, Art, figurative painting, homage, nude, oil on panel, oil painting, Painting, rape, rubens, Tom Bennett on March 24, 2011 by Tom BennettRubens’s Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus confronts the viewer with an interpretative dilemna. The composition illustrates the story recounted by Theocritus and Ovid of how the twin brothers Castor and Pollux (called the Dioscuri) forcibly abducted and later married the daughters of King Leucippus. Rubens’s depiction of the abduction is marked by some striking ambiguities: an equivocation between violence and solicitude in the demeanor of the brothers, and an equivocation between resistance and gratification in the response of the sisters. The energized ebullience and sensual appeal of the group work to override our darker thoughts about the coercive nature of the abduction.
I’ve decided to take this painting and place it in another ambiguous and disconnected space, distorting much of the narrative and for lack of a better cliché, recontextualizing. At this late stage it still needs some tweeking and resolution of various passages.
Tom Bennett
Sisters, oil on panel, 24″ x 30″
Aesthetic Limbo
Posted in abstract, Art, figurative, homage, oil painting, Painting, Tom Bennett with tags abstract, allegory, Art, homage, oil on panel, oil painting, Painting, tiepolo, Tom Bennett on March 17, 2011 by Tom BennettI’m continuing with the deconstruction and reconstruction of antique allegorical paintings. This was initially influenced by Tiepolo’s The Martyrdom of St Bartholomew. I’m concerned here with the relationship of process and the subconscious; finding the ambiguous spaces between the concrete and the obscure. At this stage it simply looks like a semi cubist painting, so I’m unsure of my feelings about it.
The support for this painting is a ready-made cradled hardboard with a texture I’m not entirely happy with. The acrylic gessoed, evenly patterned surface seems to absorb the medium too fast and too much, and the texture isn’t quite responding to the tools I’m using for mark-making. I think I’ll be returning to a little more resistant surface.
Tom Bennett
Bartholemew 3-11, 2011, oil on panel, 24″ x 18″
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