Biography

BORN
Chicago, IL
STUDY
M.F.A. Painting and Drawing, Tulane University;  B.F.A. Painting and Drawing, University of Florida
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

Carl Hammer Gallery - GUY BENSON, Houses, Heads and Checkerboard Landscapes February 12 - March 26, 2016
Carl Hammer Gallery Summer Group Exhibit Chicago, Illinois, July 10-August 22, 2015
Illinois State Museum Lockport Gallery Lockport, Illinois, April 28-July 1, 2015
Metro Show New York City  Carl Hammer Gallery, January 22-25, 2015
Chicago Art Expo  Chicago, Illinois Carl Hammer Gallery September 18-21, 2014
Carl Hammer Gallery Summer Group Exhibit Chicago, Illinois May 15-July 1, 2014
Illinois State Museum of Chicago “Focus Four” Exhibition Chicago, Illinois, April 2014-July 2014 – Curator: Douglas Stapleton, Assistant Curator of Art with the Illinois State Museum Chicago Gallery
Contemporary Art Center of Peoria, Peoria, Illinois, November 2, 2013-December 27, 2013 – One Person Painting Exhibition in conjunction with One Person Sculpture Exhibition of Bob Dixon
Dubuque Museum of Art Biennial Exhibition, Dubuque, Iowa, April 6, 2013-July 21, 2013 – Painting selected by juror James A. Welu, Director Emeritus, Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts
Axis Gallery 7th National Exhibition,  Sacramento, California, August 4 –August 26, 2012 – Painting selected by juror Apsara DiQuizio, Associate Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Works on Paper NYC: Jeffrey Leder Gallery,  Long Island City, New York, June 24-July 15, 2012  -  Selected by Jeffrey Leder and Leder Gallery associates
International Painting NYC: Jeffrey Leder Gallery, Long Island City, New York,  January 8, 2012  – March 4, 2012 – Two paintings selected – Selected by Jeffrey Leder and Leder Gallery associates
One Person Exhibit: Gray Gallery, Quincy University, Quincy, Illinois, March 2011
Small Works, 34th Harper College National Art Exhibition, Palatine, Illinois, March 25 – April 22 – Juror: Lanny Silverman, Chief Curator, Chicago Cultural Center
Group Exhibition:  Koelsch Gallery, Houston, Texas, Dec. 2-24, 2010
The Encoded Landscape: Works by Guy Benson and Nichole Maury,  Indianapolis Art Center, Indianapolis, Indiana, April 23 – June 6, 2010 – Curator: Patrick Flaherty, Director of Exhibitions at the Indianapolis Art Center
Small Works, 33rd Harper College National Art Exhibition, Palatine, Illinois, March 29 – April 22, 2010 – Juror: Douglas Stapleton, Assistant Curator of Art with the Illinois State Museum Chicago Gallery
Art on Paper National Exhibition 2010,  Maryland Federation of Art, Annapolis, Maryland, March 19 – April 18, 2010 – Juror: Joann Moser, Senior Curator of Graphic Arts at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
Art Center of Northern New Jersey 15th National Juried Show, New Milford, NJ,  April 29-May 28, 2006 – Juror: Henriette Huldisch, Assistant Curator of Painting, Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC
Alameda Art Center 2006 National Juried Exhibition, Alameda, CA, March 2-24, 2006 – Juror: Janet Bishop, Senior Curator of Painting and Sculpture, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Alameda Art Center Contemporary Abstracts Exhibition, Alameda, CA, August 5-25, 2005 – Juror: Kenneth Baker, Art Critic San Francisco Chronicle
Prairie State College “Works on Paper” Exhibit, Christopher Art Gallery, Chicago Heights, IL, October 8 – November 4, 2004 – Juror: Javier Chavira, Professor of Painting, Governors State University, University Park, IL
Edward Hopper Art Center “Small Matter of Great Importance”, Hopper House Art Center, Nyack, NY, September 4 – 26, 2004 –Two paintings selected – Juror: Jean-Paul Maitinsky, Assistant Director of Exhibits at the Hudson River Museum, Yonkers NY
Art Center of Northern New Jersey 13th National Juried Exhibit, New Milford, NJ, May 8/ May 30, 2004 – Honorable Mention - Two drawings selected  – Juror: Susan Cross, Assoc. Curator, Guggenheim Museum, NYC
San Diego Art Institute 2004/47th International Exhibition, San Diego Art Institute, San Diego, CA, May 1/ June 17, 2004 – Two drawings selected – Juror: Peter Gordon, Director Carlsbad CA Cultural Arts and Wm. Cannon Art Gallery
Evanston Art Center Faculty Exhibit, Evanston, IL, July/August 2001
Four Artist Exhibit, Surface Impressions,  Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art,  Chicago, IL,  March, April 2000
Group Exhibit, Aspects of Abstraction, Kirkland Art Center, Kirkland, NY, April- May 1999
Group Exhibit, Evanston Art Center, Evanston, IL, May-June 1998
Two Person Exhibit, Loyola University Crown Center Gallery, Chicago, IL, November 1997
One Person Exhibit, Sonia Zaks Gallery, Chicago, IL, June 1997
One Person Exhibit, McHenry County College Gallery, Crystal Lake, IL, July 1996
X,Y, and O, Group Invitational, Pearl Conard Gallery, Ohio State University at Mansfield, Mansfield, OH, February 1996
One Person Exhibit, Robert De Caprio Gallery, Moraine Valley Community College, Palos Hills, IL, January 1996
Silent Spaces, Invitational Exhibit curated by Michael Watts, Tarble Arts Center, Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, IL, August-September 1995

 

Benson's work is in constant play - exploring theme and variation, tonal harmony and dissonance.  it feels like music.  Other associations that come to mind are inscriptions and maps.  The images resemble a pictorial language that we may decode with close diligent scrutiny.  The compositions also suggest spatial relationships that might guide us on our journey through a foreign land.  But these paintings are not easily read - their syntax or meaning is confounded by their hermetic, playful wit.

Doug Stapleton

 

What is a house?  A human head?  A landscape?  How can these fundamental and eternal phenomena be reinvestigated (after centuries of revelations)?  How can I infuse these subjects with some new poetic conception, explore their capacities to become (once again) symbol?  Painting - always, it seems, an embattled art - can still attempt to answer these questions, through thought and diligence and the artist's endurance.

Guy Benson

 

 

Artist’s Statement

My paintings and drawings are almost always small in scale.  This scale contributes to a certain element of intimacy that I strive for, a part of the work’s content.
The forms and images in my work are arrived at intuitively, that is to say they are instinctive, subjective and poetic in nature.  Their realization on canvas expresses
the uniquely personal, however these images also endeavor to have a broader, archetypal character.
The alignment of forms and their relationship to one another is also a factor in the content of the work. Each viewer must bring her or his own interpretation of the work from their own perspective.  This may change with repeated viewings, but the artist can ask for no more in regard to an audience.


Guy Benson