This is a bad photo of a work in progress. I’m going south for a couple of days.
Tom Bennett

WIP, oil into monotype on paper, 18″ x 24″
This is a bad photo of a work in progress. I’m going south for a couple of days.
Tom Bennett

WIP, oil into monotype on paper, 18″ x 24″
Here I’m publishing the 1st stage – an original monotype – and the finished overlaid painting. Looking at the two images now I can see what choices I would make differently. The energy of the 1st state has been redirected distinctly.
I’m working on some monotypes dedicated to Jeremy Lin, the phenom of the NY Knicks. I hope to post the results later.
Tom Bennett
Nod to Basch, 1st stage, monotype, 18″ x 28″
Nod to Basch, oil over monotype on paper, 18″ x 28″
More paintings made from monotypes. These two pieces I finished a couple of days ago and I’m of two minds about them. The first, In the Corner, may be a tad too defined in the figure. I’m not sure I’m pushing the abstraction enough. The second painting I’m on the fence about as well. How’s that for mixed metaphor cliches?
Tom Bennett
In the Corner, oil over monotype on paper, 28″ x 20″
The Fat and the Thin, oil over monotype on paper, 20″ x 16″
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.


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
Nice and Easy, oil on monotype, rives bfk paper, 20″ x 16″
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.
Hedwigs’s Spread Spectrum, oil over monotype on paper, 20″ x 16″
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
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″
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″
from the NYC subway this week:




And not from the subway:
pencil, graphite, gouache and ink:

Undercooked

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