|
|
|
|
Latest Artist's Video:
| |
Artist Statement:
Please go to You Tube and type
in April Bending to view a
video discussion on my work.Or
www.aprilbending.com
Statement for recent solo show
in NYC
Limiting the palette allows
the viewer to focus on the
image rather than be
distracted by a myriad of
colours; much ...
Further Information
| |
Artist Exhibitions:
www.aprilbending.com
Upcoming Exhibitions 2009
Florence Biennale (Invited by
the selection committee)
Florence, Italy December
5-13, 2009
Previous Fairs
Affordable Art Fair NYC
New York City, USA
The Armory Show at Bridge Art
New York City, USA
Art Basel Miami at Bridge Art
Miami, USA
Art Forum at ...
Further Information
|
|
Artist Galleries:
www.aprilbending.com
Milan, Italy Ars
Italica Galleria d’Arte
Ferrara, Italy
Trevisan Arte Contemporanea
New York City, USA Monkdogz
Urban Art
New Orleans, USA Carol
Robinson Gallery
Victoria, Canada Sooke
Harbour House Gallery
Cayman Islands The
Kennedy Gallery. Pure Art
Gallery
...
Further Information
|
|
|
|
Collections:
www.aprilbending.com
1- National Gallery of the
Cayman Islands.
2- Eight paintings were
featured in Orlando Bloom's
movie "Haven".
3- Paintings from the "Sails"
series were chosen for banners
for National Heroes Day 2008
in Cayman.
4- Andreas Ugland Collection
5- Private collections in
Italy, Japan, USA,
Switzerland, ...
Further Information
|
|
Commissions:
Coming Soon!
|
|
|
Reviews for April Bending:
|
|
|
www.aprilbending.com
To read articles click on "further information" and scroll down:
ARTnews Top Collectors issue summer 2009
Studio & Gallery Feb/March 2009 page 12
NYarts Magazine March 2009
ARTnews March 2009
Modern Painters March 2009
Cayman Net Newspaper January 2 2009 page 18
Modern Painters Dec/Jan 2009
The Cayman Compass Dec 19 2008 page A12
The Cayman Compass Dec 18 2008 page A12
NYArts Internet Guide Nov/Dec 2008
Gallery & Studio Nov/Dec 2008 page 37
Monopol (Germany) November 2008
NYArts Magazine Nov/Dec 2008 page 45
Gallery and Studio Sept/Oct 2008 page 34
ARTnews magazine Summer 2008 page 89
Cayman Life Magazine Winter 2008 page 78-79
Cayman Life Magazine Summer 2007 page 72-73
NY ARTS Magazine Review Nov/Dec 2008 - Jill Smith
In the exhibition at the Broadway Gallery Bending, the Cayman Islands based artist April Bending presents a selection of her enigmatic sculptural paintings that respond to issues surrounding the human and the human desire for immortality. Broadly composed yet intricately detailed, each painting renders a realistic depiction of the human condition that conveys an atmosphere of confinement and isolation. Presented in a sequence of portraits, scenes, and fossils, Bending forms a narrative that tells a story of everyday existence, mortality, and desire. The juxtaposition of the fragile fish, with the sculpture-like remains, alongside human portraits that stare back at the viewer, emphasizes sentiments of mortality and immortality within her work.
Bending’s work captures moments of tranquility, which contrast with uneasy oneiric elements. She uses unusual color combinations, and depicts scenes from unexpected angles, all contributing to give her work a magic realist feel. In Waiting, a large-scale work in acrylic on canvas, the artist explores the human existence on a subliminal level. Her signature—a monochromatic palette balanced with textural brushstrokes—is a tool the artist utilizes in order to transform the ordinary into something anthropological and poetic. Texture is also important to the artist, Bending uses the surface of the canvas to diffuse light and create variations and ambiguities beneath each layer of paint. Such ambiguities require the viewer to participate in deciphering the piece through personal interpretation, thereby engaging in a personal relationship with the work.
Limiting the palette in order to allow the viewer to focus on the image rather than be distracted by a myriad of colors, Bending creates work that manifests her own personal vision, drawing on a diverse cross-section of cultures and styles to realize her wide range of visual and conceptual ideas. Bending is an intuitive artist who has developed a new and unique contribution to the art and culture of her times. Her own life experiences have been a major influence, releasing her from the usual conventions of art making. The breathtaking result is contemplative, meditative, and sanguine.
Gallery & Studio magazine September/October 2008
April Bending: Of Arduous Journeys and Serene Arrivals
- Maurice Taplinger
While many artists use their websites as virtual galleries, the particular advantage of such a site, in the case of the immensely productive and widely exhibited painter April Bending, is that it (www.aprilbending.com)enables viewers to take in much more of her work than could reasonably be presented in even the most comprehensive exhibition.
Some of Bending's strongest paintings are seen in her "On the Road Series", darkly evocative acrylics on canvas in a palette restricted to monochromatic earth tones. Their compositions centre on human figures, seen singly or in groups, that take on monumental qualities by virtue of Bending'smastery of anatomy and the ability to evoke emotional resonance through facial expressions -or in the case of the painting she calls" The Long way Home", through the lack of them.
For in this particular canvas,the figures take on a somnambulant quality, as they traverse what appears to be a dirt road, bracketed between rectangular divisions, suggesting a stretch of blacktop embellished on one side by highway markings. Here, Bending's use of stark geometric abstraction, rather than distancing the figures,serves to emphasize their weary humanity, as they trudge homeward along a narrow, seemingly endless path.
All the paintings in the "On the Road Series" appear to deal in one way or another with the arduousness of life's journey, either literally or symbolically. In "This Too Shall Pass", for example, the couple in the paintings like Picasso's "Absinthe Drinkers", are seen imbibing rather that engaging in an actual journey. But, as the title suggests, they are hardly at their ease: athe female figure clutches a glass as though for dear life, resting her head on the shoulder of her companion, who strokes her brow in an effort to provide momentary comfort, as they inhabit a melancholy miasma of "wine and roses".
Something of an anomaly for being the only work in the series sans a human figure, "The Eddy" is a lyrical composition depicting a circular current in a clear body of water, fish swimming beneath its crystalline surface. Executed with a swirling sinuousness akin to the linear motifs of Art Nouveau, "The Eddy" holds out the hope of a cool oasis at the end of the dusty road.
Other serene subjects come into play in Bending's "Sails Series" and "Sea and Palms Series", presumably inspired by spending part of the year in the Cayman Islands. Here, vibrant color is applied more liberally in landscapes and marinescapes that serve as impetus for semi-abstract explorations which reach their exquisite apex in "In Midnight Waves", an image of frothy aquatic majesty to rival in its own way Hokasai's most masterly color woodblock print, "The Great Wave".
Bending reveals further versatility in her "Fish Series",where the various species on iconic qualities in composition where the various species take on iconic qualities in compositions where they are juxtaposed gracefully with underwater flora, and in her "Moon Series", where lunar orbs inspire some of her more austere yet poetic acrylics on canvas. Also of considerable interest are a number of insightful portraits, as well as a "Free Standing series" of towering works comprised of stacked canvases that breach the gap between painting and sculpture.
All attest to the power and originality of April bending's varied oeuvre.
|
|
contact artist
