Metro 5 Gallery upcoming Benjamin Because of you

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Jason Benjamin - Because of you I see a light

Aug 25 - Aug 28

This body of work began a little over a year ago with the title piece as a kind of pointer, or so I thought. I felt it was time to drop any guard within myself, to look at what was in front of me everyday, to observe, to engage. The title piece was at the time one of many paintings of exactly the same spot on different days, in fact I had seriously intended to do a whole cycle (maybe 50) on this principal. I had 10 in different states of undress when another manic compulsion took hold…..

Let's go away. In May last year myself, wife and kids left for some time in Sicily and France before setting up shop in a tiny house near the Catskill Mountains in New York. My impetus for work was to shake things up, see new things, test myself, ourselves. Traveling and working with kids in tow is indeed a test, but you become a very tight unit and it was this bond that would underpin this show. Not just in some vague sentiment but in my approach to observing nature. I wasn't passing through the landscape I was of the landscape, part of the landscape. Likewise with my family I wasn't off working all the time, consumed. We were quite isolated and they needed me around a bit more but more importantly I wanted to be.

Face the music. The opportunity to engage more fully with Art History was vitally important as well. To cut the crap. Hours spent in the Louvre, Musee D'Orsay and the Met in New York patiently standing in front of Rembrandt, Friedrich, Chardin, van Gogh putting aside the academic scripture for a moment and letting these mortal pictures speak. And do they speak! This is my dialogue, my thread, my path. As Henri Matisse said "…for I have devoted my life to the essential thing-the thing for which I am made and may bring a little happiness to the great family. The greatest spiritual family"

The pictures in this show are deeply personal but their spirit is universal. There is great sadness, great joy, hope and tenderness in them if you want to see it. They take time.

Take care,
Jason Benjamin

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Jason Benjamin - Because of you I see a light	Aug 25 - Aug 28
	This body of work began a little over a year ago with the title piece as a kind of pointer, or so I thought. I felt it was time to drop any guard within myself, to look at what was in front of me everyday, to observe, to engage. The title piece was at the time one of many paintings of exactly the same spot on different days, in fact I had seriously intended to do a whole cycle (maybe 50) on this principal. I had 10 in different states of undress when another manic compulsion took hold…..
Let's go away. In May last year myself, wife and kids left for some time in Sicily and France before setting up shop in a tiny house near the Catskill Mountains in New York. My impetus for work was to shake things up, see new things, test myself, ourselves. Traveling and working with kids in tow is indeed a test, but you become a very tight unit and it was this bond that would underpin this show. Not just in some vague sentiment but in my approach to observing nature. I wasn't passing through the landscape I was of the landscape, part of the landscape. Likewise with my family I wasn't off working all the time, consumed. We were quite isolated and they needed me around a bit more but more importantly I wanted to be.
	Face the music. The opportunity to engage more fully with Art History was vitally important as well. To cut the crap. Hours spent in the Louvre, Musee D'Orsay and the Met in New York patiently standing in front of Rembrandt, Friedrich, Chardin, van Gogh putting aside the academic scripture for a moment and letting these mortal pictures speak. And do they speak! This is my dialogue, my thread, my path. As Henri Matisse said "…for I have devoted my life to the essential thing-the thing for which I am made and may bring a little happiness to the great family. The greatest spiritual family"
The pictures in this show are deeply personal but their spirit is universal. There is great sadness, great joy, hope and tenderness in them if you want to see it. They take time. Take care, Jason Benjamin