Gabrielle Benot

Gabrielle Benot, "Royal Blue" Abstract Equine Portrait Mixed Media on Canvas

2022

Born in Latvia, Ms. Gabrielle Benot had a natural gift for artistic creativity. From a young age, she had a keen interest in sketching, drawing, and sculpting. She matured as an artist over time, often under the guidance of her grandfather, who was a self-taught painter. Eventually, she would study fashion design at the Royal Fashion Academy (Margrethe Skolen) in Copenhagen. Several of her teachers include Andrea Rushing, known for his Steampunk aesthetic, and Jeffrey Watts for portraiture. Aside from her teachers, Gabrielle has also been influenced and inspired by Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell, Joan Brown, and Jean-Paul Riopelle to name a few. Her style reflects an interest in partial figurative representation and a reduction of subject matter into minimalistic elements. Additionally, many of Ms. Benot’s paintings materialize from and are inspired by a variety of sources; travels, literature, magazines, and alluring private snapshots based on luxury fashion branding and the equestrian lifestyle. She has used many of these sources to develop a technique of her own called Guscio. That multimedia technique includes the use of wet brushes, dry brushes, palette knives, oil pastels, charcoal, and a variety of things mixed into textured pastes that are applied in a form layer upon layer. Concentrating on flow, color, and a sense of stylistic freedom Gabrielle uses her technique to experiment with abstract forms and non-figurative art styles to reach a kind of fresh, diverse, and emotionally expressive art.