Julia Bennett
julia-bennett.com | @julia_bennett__studio
Churning with gestural marks, Julia Bennett’s paintings suggest a primordial world underscored by brutality.
These fires will persist; Do you hear the silence of it all? Chaos ensues. We go mad just to prove we’re okay. We’re not okay, Acrylic, Oil Paint, Charcoal and Oil Stick on Canvas
Breeding monsters from routine; while Chrysaora become unrelenting, ravenous voids, replicating our very nature, mercilessly devouring habitats without reason; engulfing and destroying life. Just as quickly, fire erupts from waterless land, running without exhaustion, feeding off the heat we deny. Deny, ignore, destroy. It’s all erupting anyways, Oil Paint, and Oil Pastel on Canvas
Julia Bennett Artist Statement:
The continuous creation/erasure/recreation of my work and my thoughts reveals the convergence and collapse of ourselves in the Anthropocene. Observation of the dualities between the real and abstract present unsettling but imperative questions about our behavior. My work recognizes the inherited, biological, and violent nature we posses, seeking to provoke [in order to dismantle this behavior.]. Emotional in form, yet intellectual in composition - lived experience, research and reflection accumulate onto the 'rag on the wall' in repetitive, instinctual movements. Content and emotion are critical to each cycle of evolutionary development. As information becomes accessible, new gestures are created/destroyed, only to be reformed yet again as thoughts become irrelevant. This work is constantly reshaping itself in form and practice; unlearning outdated practices and mindsets in order to remain parallel to the acceleration of my environment. These paintings have become a reflection of/on our symbiotic tangling with the earth we have colonized, commodified and ultimately consumed without ceasing. We humans, like the rest, are constantly manifesting and decaying into one another - in every point in time and in all compositions. Our cells consume until they die. We, collectively, will follow.
Checklist:
1. These fires will persist; Do you hear the silence of it all? Chaos ensues. We go mad just to prove we’re okay. We’re not okay. Acrylic, Oil Paint, Charcoal and Oil Stick on Canvas, 80” x 115”, 2020
2. Breeding monsters from routine; while Chrysaora become unrelenting, ravenous voids, replicating our very nature, mercilessly devouring habitats without reason; engulfing and destroying life. Just as quickly, fire erupts from waterless land, running without exhaustion, feeding off the heat we deny. Deny, ignore, destroy. It’s all erupting anyways, Acrylic, Oil Paint, and Oil Pastel on Canvas, 72” x 62”, 2020