ARTIST RECEPTION FRIDAY, AUGUST 11, 5-7PM

OIL, FIBER, METAL – A VERY MIXED MEDIA EXHIBITION
AUGUST 7 – SEPTEMBER 15, 2023
Canyon Community Center Gallery – 126 Lion Blvd, Springdale, UT

 

 

Oil, Fiber, Metal

After relocating from the San Francisco Bay Area to Zion Canyon almost eight years ago, I assumed I would return focus to my deep roots in the visual arts. I imagined I would slink in with hermit-like gusto, especially into this “slower quiet” of a rural atmosphere.

Slower didn’t happen much in this lively canyon, and it probably never will. But with more blessed settling in and the privilege of time, the art finally seems to have started pouring forth. Through daily creativity there has been a sense of arriving back to an old home, similar to one I inhabited throughout my entire youth and undergraduate studies, from drawing on walls to earning a BFA in Art (Painting and Drawing Concentration). (With a minor in Music [performance concentration]. And another minor in Psychology, because… love of people, and learning.)

In the long meantime, much to my surprise and having been taught by a dear friend, I became an avid quilter, and then an “art quilter,” soon “painting” with threads and recycled fabric scraps. Also, surprisingly, and mostly self-taught, I simultaneously developed a career as a professional web/graphic designer and photographer in Silicon Valley for a frantic decade.

The crazy magic of dabbling away at the world through oil paints never left my soul, however. And soon I began playing with soft metals, so firm yet playable, so earthbound yet civilized. This exhibition, Oil, Fiber, Metal, has unfolded as a broad sampling of many of these collisions and cohesions.

Moving into Zion Canyon has been not just its own homecoming but also a beautifully, hauntingly evocative immersion, through each changing hour and day. I have felt almost remiss when not lending at least some eye or homage to the canyon’s endless esthetic and conceptual treasures.

My relatively recent Master of Science degree in Environmental Studies must further inform the dizzying fractal depths of both simplicity and complexity which the desert presents, everywhere. I humbly try to express what too often feels inexpressible, as I build small, fleeting artifacts — love totems to what I see, feel, and wonder upon.

                                                          Lisa Benham, Summer, 2023