Oliver Hazard Benson

Amlodi's Nightmare, - Highly Detailed Surrealist, Original Painting on Panel

2021

This painting, like each of the paintings in the Purple Dawn series, is based on an earlier work that was lost or destroyed in the course of time. Feeling that I wanted to finish wha...

Oliver Hazard Benson The Blue Knight giclee 35h x 23w in 88.90h x 58.42w cm 1/11 AP OB0032 Oliver Hazard’s paintings are produced directly from his i...

As is generally the case with my paintings, this work proceeded from a place of unknowing. The specificity of imagery and technique belie the non-specific character of the ideas and narratives presented. The imagery is not tied to any pre-existent source (textual or other). It is not preconceived by the artist, rather it is produced spontaneously in the process of painting. That said, it seems both easy and sensible to connect the imagery in this painting to common cultural material, especially that from very ancient sources. The central figure is very much like a totemic Neolithic goddess- the sort of which seem to be among the most ancient artistic works, examples are extant from eras stretching back tens of thousands of years. A lot has been written about figures of that kind but of course no one can reasonably claim to truly understand them. Here the great goddess appears with wings and entwined serpents. Crowned also with a glowing orb she has become an emblem of a matristic hermetica. The smaller figure may be less evidently archetypical. She is a younger goddess, a daughter like Persephone to Demeter. She lifts the breasts of her mother signifying perhaps how the presence of the child evokes the nurturing qualities of the mother or how Persephone’s seasonal ascent from the underworld awakens in her mother the impulse to again give life to the world. The cluster of gynomorphic figures contained by the crescent moon at the center of the painting refer to the balanced transformations of the lunar cycle and their mysteriously harmonic physical manifestation in the vital cycles of a woman’s body. At their axis is the cycloptical abdomen of the figure enthroned on the moon. The entire totem rises from a terrestrial gateway into an open landscape. In the background megaliths obscure the horizon. They represent a first boundary in time- the beginning of history. Below is the gateway, the opening to an inner earth...

This painting, like each of the paintings in the Purple Dawn series, is based on an earlier work that was lost or destroyed in the course of time. Feeling that I wanted to finish wha...

This image is a complex allegory of inner diversity, showcasing the variety of our internal figures that constitute our identity. The dominating figure is a character wearing a mask,...

Aaron Bohrod Knight Horrors, 1985 Signed lower left Oil on gesso panel 12 x 16 inches Aaron Bohrod's work has not been limited to one style or medium. Initially recognized as a regionalist painter of American scenes, particularly of his native Chicago, Bohrod later devoted himself to detailed still-life paintings rendered in the trompe l'oeil style. He also worked for several years in ceramics and wrote a book on pottery. Born in 1907, Bohrod began his studies at Chicago's Crane Junior College in 1925, and two years later enrolled in the Art Institute of Chicago. But it was at the Art Students League in New York City, from 1930 to 1932, that he studied under the man believed to be his most significant early influence, John Sloan. Sloan's romantic realism is reflected in the many depictions of Chicago life...

The style of this painting is Surrealism. The aim was to resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality. I sought to channel the unconscious as a means to unloc...

Artist: Rodolfo Opazo, Chilean (1935 - ) Title: Cabeza Year: 1983 Medium: Oil on Canvas, signed l.l. and verso Size: 39 x 32 inches