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Artist Exhibitions:
Coming Soon!
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Artist Reviews:
Coming Soon!
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Collections:
Coming Soon!
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Commissions:
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Artist Statement for Bob Bennett
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All my work is done in a *very* simple, traditional darkroom -
One enlarger, four trays, and a collection of hand tools made from things you can buy at any art supply, or hardware store. Though I work digitally (making web graphics), nothing in either the assignment or art portfolio has been made by a computer.
I print only two or three 'original' copies of an image, overwhelmingly on 16x20, in black and white.
All color is by hand, a combination of watercolor, and Marshall oils. If you are an assignment client, that's your repro material.
( Everyone who has ever gotten it, has been 'tickled pink'.)
Art portfolio prints are made from 4x5 copy negatives of the 'master/originals'. There are 'second' master prints available, but not of every image.
I've been doing this work since the early '80's, and I've written quite a few artists' statements about the art portfolio work. The more time goes by, the less aedequate words seem to be, and the less interested I am in trying to talk about the pictures at all.
( If words could 'do it' ... I'd be a writer ... but you've noticed, I am not one....)
I think it was Robert Rauschenberg (correct me, someone/anyone, if my attribution is wrong) who said it best - " It starts by YOU telling the picture what it will be -- in the end, THE PICTURE tells you what IT will be...".
I feel like I take that approach..... Not through any 'great design', or dogmatic adherence, ... it's just the way that comes 'naturally'.... and that is all I am interested in.
I don't want to "make it" ---- I want to "find it" (( "reality" is far more fascinating than anything we can imagine...)) ....And I will walk a lot to do that.
I collect negatives by taking myself, and simple camera, to places I love - the California coast, and desert - and start walking.....and .. "things happen" ....
I spend a lot of time with my proof sheets, and in a small room, under a dim red bulb. I'm obviously interested in things metaphysical - beyond that, it's up to the viewer to decide what's going on. ( If I haven't figured them out yet, (and I haven't, not *really*), why should I presume to explain them to anyone else?) Many of the pictures just seem to 'happen', because the individual negatives are 'looking' for each other. I'm just a chaperone, and a really loose one at that....
(But those were always the best kind of parties, right? )
Bob Bennett
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