About Leon Benn

Born in Philadelphia, PA 1981.

Lives and works in Portland, Maine.

BFA Illustration Rhode Island School of Design 2004

MFA Painting University of California Los Angeles 2013

Email: leon_benn@yahoo.com

Gallery Representation:

http://www.davidbsmithgallery.com/

https://www.grantwahlquist.com/

Whatever their subject, my paintings begin as line drawings that I translate into vivid scenes through a process incorporating photo enlargement, Batik-style dyeing, acrylic washes, out-of-focus fuzzy backgrounds, sketch-like marks in oil stick or oil pastel, and eventually the application of flat or impasto-like marks in oil paint. Though the paintings are inspired by the natural world—the transitional spaces between wilderness and settled or urban spaces often referred to as the “ecotone” in particular—they are not merely landscapes but also experiments in painterly possibilities and philosophical reflections on the false dichotomies of nature and culture, human and animal, sentimental and naive. Through careful attention to nature where it might be overlooked and the occasional incorporation of ancient flora, these paintings contemplate the relationship we have with nature on an epic scale.