‘OMA‘O — Standing in between tables in her brightly lit, second-floor studio, ‘Oma‘o artist Carol Bennett apologizes for the empty easel and brushes still wet with green paint. For the past two months the artist’s palette hasn’t had time to
‘OMA‘O — Standing in between tables in her brightly lit, second-floor studio, ‘Oma‘o artist Carol Bennett apologizes for the empty easel and brushes still wet with green paint. For the past two months the artist’s palette hasn’t had time to dry.
“It never looks like this,” she said, turning a slow circle in the center of a small loft encased by windows and filled with tables laden with sketch pads, pencils and tubes of oil paint.
She lifts a New Yorker magazine cartoon about the perils of census work from a pile of papers, saying it was a gift from her son who was baffled one morning by the presence of time sheets on the family coffee table. Earlier this summer, Bennett and fellow artist and husband Wayne Zebzda, had a brief encounter as census workers.
That creative drought is in the rearview mirror now, as Bennett volleys demands of commissions and collectors.
Having just returned from O‘ahu after an opening where two of her public art works are part of “Architecture,” a show on public art and the built environment, Bennett is repacking her suitcase for a flight Wednesday to New York City. “Current Motion,” her first solo show in NYC, opened Aug. 20 at Saint Peter’s Church Narthax Gallery and will honor Bennett Thursday with a reception.
“I feel like I swam the whole way to New York City, and boy are my arms tired,” she said.
Bennett is well known for her luminous portrayal of the body moving through water, and while the grace and meditative quality of her content may be what draws a viewer in, it’s only the bait.
“At some point it’s not what the picture’s of — I want you to trip on how the painting was made,” she said. “It’s about process and the leaps your mind takes.”
Bennett’s paintings push the edge of every material she employs as she experiments with ink, oil and acrylic paints; mica, coffee, pigment and wax. She is constantly experimenting — whether it’s adding, subtracting, sanding and recoating or testing new “canvases” like recycled sails, wood panels or glass.
One East Coast gallery sold all of her exhibit before the show even opened. Then while working on pieces for two other galleries, a “beloved French collector” dropped by her studio and bought two pieces slotted for shows.
“I’m living in a tornado,” she said without complaint. Her New York City solo show is the thrill of a lifetime.
“Since graduating from art school my dream of all dreams was to show in New York,” she said. “When I was picked up four years ago it put a spring in my step. I was thrilled and afraid — afraid my work was regional. Having my work seen in New York is an affirmation. ”
Bennett said she’s always wanted her work to possess a sense of place and universality. Her artist’s statement says her “artwork seeks to find a state of being in the ‘flow’ where the currents of the ocean suspend life and self, and the unexpected floats to the surface.”
This exploration began over 30 years ago while sitting pool-side at the Los Angeles Athletic Club and sketching swimmers in black ball-point pen.
“I keep thinking I’m done painting swimmers, but they keep resurfacing,” she said.
New materials and techniques continue to redefine her work. Today these water-dwellers are suspended over the rivery grain of wood panels where life-size bodies glide through translucent light and a kaleidoscope of color.
“For those willing to put their nose up to the work, there’s a payoff,” she said. “I’ll try anything to get the viewer away from perceiving my representational picture as being “of something.””
Bennett’s multi-layered surfaces are intricate, textured and unpredictable.
Twenty layers of white paint may be necessary to achieve a certain richness, followed by tinted blue varnish for the sheen of stained glass. She calls it creating a color “optically,” rather than through the use of pigment.
“You’re looking through the blue-tinted varnish,” she said. “Light bounces off the white and has more luminosity.”
Sanding sections of pigment down to a wood grain or allowing spills and drips to redirect her voyage, Bennett allows the “‘whoops’ to keep the process fresh and alive.
“There are lots of happy accidents if I let myself keep making mistakes,” she said. “Process. It’s all about process.”
Visit elisacontemporaryart.com/Shows.cfm to view a sample of “Current Motion.”
• Pam Woolway, lifestyle writer, can be reached at 245-3681, ext. 257 or pwoolway@kauaipubco.com.
