Gary Benfield

After leaving the academic world he set up his own studio near London and concentrated on drawing and painting figures. Within a few years his work was collected throughout Europe and his reputation firmly established.

Benfield has a natural talent for depicting things as seen. His work is spontaneous and is reflected by his drawn lines and dashes of color. The figures dissolve in and out of their backgrounds and move across the paper. He paints rapidly and discards most of his paintings and drawings, keeping only those he feels are perfected in their conception rather than overwork those that he feels are not correct.

His pictures represent a discrete world of objects which combine figures, mythology, nature, still life and despite the casual appearance of his compositions, all this imagery is highly organized, after long observation one finds the hidden symmetry of the graphic design.

For Benfield, the world around him is a continuous sequence of contained causality. Objects and figures intertwine in his mind, they dance, they fuse, the one adopts the color and life of the other. We are drawn into an intimate world of his imagery, where sensuality and delight in life's form are combined in flights of frolic and fantasy.