LandE scape
CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW
LandEscape meets
Paul Bennett
An interview by Katherine Williams, curator and Josh Ryder, curator landescape @ europe. com
Exploring the expressive potential of oil, Cumbria based artist Paul Bennett ' s work considers the vital relationship between direct experience and abstraction, to draw the viewers through a multilayered journey. In his works that we ' ll be discussing in the following pages he encapsulated both figurative and unconventional contemporary sensitiveness, to trigger the viewers ' perceptual parameters. One of the most impressive aspects of Bennett ' s practice is his successful attempt to create from memory, to produce finished work that is abstracted and more expressional than representational: we are very pleased to introduce our readers to his stimulating and multifaceted artistic production.
Hello Paul and welcome to LandEscape: we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your multifaceted professional background. You graduated from the Surrey Institute of Art and Design in 2001, with a Ba( Hons) in Fine Art Painting: while you have a solid formal training you have remarked once that you see yourself as a self taught artist: How much of your technical expertise do you attribute to art school, and how much would you say is self-taught? And in particular, how does your cultural substratum inform the way you relate yourself to the aesthetic problem in general?
I would say I was 95 % self-taught, but it doesn’ t mean that art school didn’ t have anything to do with where I am now. Art school gives me, if nothing else, the confiendence to be an artist, regardless of the fact that half the tutors were drunk after lunch. Probably learnt more from being with the other art students. The tecnical skill came after I graduated and was a result of costant experiemntation and hard work. I would say that my cultural background has played an imporatant role in the way I work and address the aesthetic problem. I tend to not see art as being romantic or whimsical or spiritual. I’ ve worked in a few industries before I got to this point in time, so for me there is no aesthetic problem. I know what needs to be created so I get on with it. 9 til 5.
Your visual language seems to be the
24