April 22 - May 28, 2004
 "Slumberland", detail, 2004, oil on wood, 11 x 10 in. |
M.Y. ART PROSPECTS is pleased to present our second solo exhibition
by Belgium-based German artist, Hans Benda. This new
series of paintings, entitled KISSING THE GROUND, will
be on view at our Chelsea gallery on 547 West 27th Street between April 22
and May 28. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday,
11am - 6pm.
Benda paints striking and intoxicating scenes and figures,
particularly, women. Captured in innocent, suggestive and at times provocative
poses, Benda's women always seem to look as if they want to communicate
with the viewer. Their faces haunt the viewer's memory. The artist, a
virtuoso of the Renaissance technique of oil-on-wood, pays attention
to every detail of his subject; the way she dresses, poses, or expresses
an attitude is distinctive, yet unmistakably natural. This meticulousness
helps to create the fascinating and complex moods and emotions in his
paintings. Benda's other trademark genre, his landscapes, are achingly
beautiful. Golden clouds in an open sky, a foggy shipyard, a floating
house on a river, R.V.'s in a campground at dusk. They are both real
and metaphorical. Slices of life and sanctuaries. Benda's paintings evoke
universal feelings through a kind of photographic memory of contemporary
imagery.
Hans Benda was born in 1960 in Berlin. At age 20, his
interest shifted from music to painting, and he pursued fine art studies
at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Karlsruhe. An abstract artist
for almost a decade, Benda swam against the prevailing artistic tide
by adopting his signature figurative style in 1998 and has continued
painting his landscapes and portraits ever since.
Since the early 1990s, Benda has lived in Verviers, a small town near
Liege, Belgium. His numerous solo and group shows have been held in Germany,
Belgium, France, Japan and the United States. In January of this year,
he was the subject of a solo exhibition entitled ALONG THE RIVERS at
the Goethe Institute in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
For further information and/or photographic materials, please contact
M.Yoshinaga. Tel. 212 268 7132 / E-mail. MYartpro@aol.com.
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