Artist : Paul Benney
Title : Dissembler 1 & 2
Medium : oil on canvas
Size : 25 x 30 cm each


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Paul Benney is a multi-disciplined artist whose oeuvre moves beyond clear and definitive categorization although his work could be seen to continue the strong tradition of ‘British Mysticism’ championed by the likes of Samuel Palmer and WilliamBlake. Benney is a polymath, the primary mode of expression being paint, which he handles with profound technicaldexterity, but to add to this he is also a goldsmith (skills learned from his father, the celebrated goldsmith Gerald Benney),a sculptor, film maker, a musician and also a perfumer, all of which he is able to carry out with notable esoteric ability and accomplishment.

Benney is a British artist born in London,. He currently lives and works in Suffolk. Benney rose to international prominenceas a member of the Soho and East Village Neo-Expressionist group, whilst living and working in New York City in the1980s where he worked and exhibited alongside peers Marylyn Minter, Jean-Michel Basquiat and David Wojnaroviczamong the many other others who made up the exploding 80s NY art scene. Despite living and working in this extraordinary creative environment Benney’s painting maintained a uniquely English sensibility. His paintings are notably represented in a plethora of public collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NewYork, The Brooklyn Museum, The National Gallery of Australia and The National Portrait Gallery in London, The RoyalCollection and The Eli Broad Foundation. He has exhibited in eight BP Portrait Award Exhibitions and twice won the BPVisitors’ Choice Award. Benney’s portrait subjects have included HM Queen Elizabeth II, Sir Mick Jagger, John Paul GettyIII, 7th Marquess of Bath, The State Portrait for Israel, Lord Rothschild, as well as Ben Barnes for the portrait in the featurefilm ‘A Portrait of Dorian Grey’ in 2008. Benney was invited to be resident artist at Somerset House in 2010. During his fiveyear residency he held the exhibition ‘Night Paintings’ in 2012 which explored themes that deal more with thesubconscious and metaphysical world and drew over 15,000 visitors. In 2017 his epic painting and holosonic soundinstallation ‘Speaking in Tongues’ was a prominent feature of the Venice Biennale, located at Chiesa San Gallo, just off StMarks’s Square. The paintings from ‘Speaking In Tongues’ were subsequently purchased by a significant US art foundation based in California for permanent exhibition.



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