Artists that Inspire: Sally Benedict

Sally Benedict is an artist who has recently caught my eye, her style is abstract but she has a mesmerising and calming quality to her work that makes me want to look at it again and again. On her website, www.sallybenedict.com, she says that she

 "...grew up in Atlanta, frequently traveling and attending art openings, exhibits, and design shows, seeking inspiration from the work of both past and contemporary artists. She completed her education at The College of Charleston in 2007. Sally has traveled extensively to South America and Europe where she honed her eye and trademark ability to create visual texture with a rich, adventurous color palette and expressive linear techniques."

from http://www.sallybenedict.com/press/ photograph by Ben Williams

from her interview above, "she's most influenced by innovative females like Georgia O'Keeffe and Sonia Delaunay, the french painter who applied her geometric vision to everything from textiles to photography. Benedict often incorporates the kaleidoscopic colors of the Lowcountry and recently began dabbling in portraiture..." 

I love the completative, soothing nature of her pieces that still manage to be lively and feminine; sounds like she puts a lot of herself in her art judging from her interviews. These are all lovely pieces and I would love to be able to have one for my home.

Ethereal

Nugget 1

both painting above from http://stylecarrot.com/2012/03/19/artmonday-sally-king-benedict-abstact-paintings/ and are sold.

Spring Bazaar

Mexican Tile

Two Weeks Off

Cords

 -this last one is my favourite...

These last four are from her current portfolio, find at http://www.sallybenedict.com/work/new/

Her work reminds me of the work of the early expressionist artists like Kandinsky's Black Arc, and inspires in me the same dreamy affect of Chagall, though without the flying animals. Her art seems to me like an extension of what the Expressionists found in Cubism, a technique to "explore the emotional facets of the subconscious, primitive energy by reorganizing the pictures surface"1.

" Mountains and Sea" Helen Frankenthaler, 1952

Sally's art reminds me in particular of Helen Frankenthaler's work as she combined free intermingling patterns where the pigment and the illusion of depth. She along with Albers and Morris Louis were part of the Late Abstract Expressionism in the 50s and 60s creating art that people were to live with rather than for the gallery. You look at both Sally's and Helen's work and are overwhelmed by the artist's feelings imbedded in the work, it may not necessarily be a representational work but it still imparts the experience that the artist intended.

 As for me it makes me want to pick up my brush again and paint some abstract reflections on the coming warm weather, maybe I'll head off to the park with my easel and paint 'en plein air' like Monet taught.

1. Art: A history of Changing Style by Sara Cornell p.396