1990-2005 'A Survey' - Malcolm Benham
18th October - 12th November 2005

About this Survey

I left my hometown Wellington, New Zealand in 1988 with a fifteen year exhibition background both as a painter & sculptor. I was looking for fresh experiences. I'd travelled extensively and spent my childhood in the 50s growing up in pre-Vietnam Thailand or 'Siam - Venice of the East' as it was known. Although I have a great affection for New Zealand I never felt I fitted as New Zealand drifted toward a Pacific culture I was drawn to the Australian lifestyle - the fusion of American, European and Asian. Besides the climate was one hundred percent better for a start.

The first three years were spent settling into Australia in sub-tropical Brisbane, showing at Roz MacCallams city gallery and teaching at the art schools. A period of consolidation ensued. The melding of painting & sculpture resulted in the show 'Frightening Facts Made Dead Simple' which verged on installation with assembled pieces like 'Double Indemnity'. 'Crossing Over', a constructed piece from two car bodies, won the 1988 Alice Bicentennial Prize for sculpture and summed up my transition.

In 1990 I was appointed guest lecturer in drawing at the Swire School of Design, Hong Kong Polytechnic. This was a radical shift from the practice point of view as it was not physically possible to work as before. Space in Kowloon was premium, tiny studio, no storage and certainly not in the cramped confines of a small flat in Tsim Sha Tsui. I concentrated on drawing and recording impressions of living in a human neon ant heap - I loved it.

Two years later on returning to Sydney to settle, I was overwhelmed by the freshness, the open spaces and the laid back lifestyle. So much for Sydneys 'quick or the dead' reputation. So from balancing abstraction, painting & drawing in Hong Kong; it was like a brand new chapter, which it was. 'Real Objects' and the exciting musical background of Nick Cave and visual stimulation of Jim Jarmuschs 'Dead Man' compressed on the Australian landscape. 'Scrap Culture' and 'Sign Language' followed. What opened the flood gates were the increasingly frequent visits to the New South Wales south coast. A gallery patron introduced me to Nick Friend who kindly made available his late uncles, the artist Donald Friend, Guerilla Bay shack. This coincided with the director of the Wollongong City Art Gallery, Peter O'Neill suggesting I visit the unusual and pristine
environment of Guerilla Bay. What a happy little piece of synchronicity that became a great source of inspiration. Holidays on the South Coast became the focus for recording journeys through signs and painted drawings - elements of the gothic still popped up with head shapes such as 'Whisper' and 'In and Out of Light'. Guerilla Bay became the freeing of the image to pure abstraction to reveal moments & responses to the landscape.

In 2000 the NSW Ministry of the Arts Gunnery residency allowed an environment to bring together all the physical ingredients - painting, drawing and found material with the heady inspiration of the Snowys and Monaro. 'In and Out of Light' came from a focus on frequent trips across the Monaro which developed into a more detailed examination for the Ben Grady Gallery show in Canberra 2002 appropriately called 'Close Range'. An extensive holiday in New Zealand was to swtich the attention by way of casting an eye over a similar but also familiar landscape which resulted in 'King Country' paintings. Although in the country of my birth I felt like a stranger and I think I was able for once to see the landscape from outsiders eyes. I found NZ landscape dramatic; but attractive and safe, unlike the Australian landscape to which I had come to love - massive scale, burnt and rugged - it bites.

Over the fifteen years this survey covers I've distilled my mark making - my own visual language, refined it - tossed it around - turned it upsidedown - at times drowning it in paint and found surfaces but always a disciplined accident.

Malcolm Benham September 2005.