Oliver Hazard Benson

Dagon Calapesce, Symbolic Male Warrior Figure Surrounded by Water, Acrylic/Panel

2018

Oliver Hazard Benson Totemic Arhat acrylic on panel 9h x 7w in 22.86h x 17.78w cm OB0111 Oliver Hazard’s paintings are produced directly from his imagination and deals with a mixtur...

This is a version of the Renaissance motif known as "Death and the Maiden". I think the motif generally was meant to condemn Voluptus (born of the...

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...

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...

Canvas size 73x60 cm. Frameless.

Artist: Richard R. Benda (1934 - ) Title: Satyricon - Triptych Year: circa 1970 Medium: Acrylic on Board, signed l.r. Frame Size: 40 in. x 63 in. (101.6 cm x 160.02 cm)

Atlantis, A large spectacular nautical, marine magic fantasy. (without the frame it is 32X39 inches) The roots for Peter Kolin’s fascinating world of Surrealist Fantasy, Magic Realist images can be traced back to the art of Mannerism, a brief period - approximately 1520 to 1610 - between the Renaissance and Age of the Baroque. In Mannerist paintings composition had no focal point and space could be ambiguous. Surreal figures could be characterized by athletic bending and twisting with distortions, exaggerations, elastic elongation of the limbs, bizarre or graceful posturing and the rendering of the heads as uniformly small and oval. (reminds me very much of some of the compositions of Salvador Dali) The composition was full of clashing symbolist colors very unlike the balanced, natural and often dramatic colors of the High Renaissance. Mannerist works presented instability and restlessness and also showed a fondness for allegories with lascivious undertones. Kolin, an exceptionally gifted painter within this tradition, creates gorgeous and mysterious fantasies of Surrealism with each work opening a new and more exciting fantastic world. His narrative world of images and symbols is presented in his own metaphorical language but with a visual accuracy solidly rooted in technical perfection. Today Kolin is a widely acclaimed artist of the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism. (Together with, Arik Erich Brauer, Ernst Fuchs, Rudolf Hausner...

Il Tritone i Neptuno Neptune Water Oil Painting on Canvas Rome Contemporary In Stock - Size 30 x 40 cm; Size with Frame: 42,5 x 52,5 cm Giovanni Tommasi Ferroni (1967, Rome) descend...