Interview with Aviv Benn: A dreamlike world that goes beyond the canvas
Aviv Benn has recently joined Increase Art, bringing her expressionistic will work to the platform. Her paintings are a visible universe starring symbolic archetypes and fantastical sorts that pop up, reappear, and incorporate to formulate the dreamlike environment they inhabit. By repeating the exact same imagery above various canvases, she informs a narrative that stretches much past the boundaries of a singular portray. Weaving new interactions collectively, she constructs a vivid, interconnecting fantasy during her works.
Aviv in her studio with various pieces from her fantastical dreamlike entire world (Photograph: Omer Gaash)
How would you describe the artwork you produce?
Paintings, primarily oil on canvas.
Cosmos Inhaler, 2021, oil, spray paint, linocut and wax medium on canvas, 70 x 60cm
Explain to us a little bit about the inspiration behind your practice
Whenever people today talk to me the problem just about every painter dreads, “So.. what is your operate about?” or “Can you notify me about what you paint?” I jokingly say “How a great deal the world sucks.” I guess it’s my way of saying how I deal with existential dread, the uncertainty of currently being, and this existing period and its a lot of upheavals. That’s the inspiration guiding my function in terms of matter make a difference. As a painter, although, I check out to thrust matters ahead from a follow/medium-primarily based standpoint, to make far more shocking get the job done, and to make each piece a small improved than the last. That is what conjures up me and keeps me active in the studio.
Not Haste Into A Landscape, 2021, oil, spray paint, oil pastels on canvas, 65 x 65cm
How do you come up with the concepts for your artworks?
The themes in my operate take many years to discover, and every single human body of get the job done reveals yet another side of a earth I am building bit by bit. Just about every collection explores a established of symbols, creatures, and painterly environments that tell a cohesive nevertheless abstract tale. The imagery introduced in each individual sequence is intuitive and operates as a distorted mirror of our entire world. Portray is a medium that defies terms (just talk to painters how significantly they detest writing those people artist statements, hehe). There is a thing elusive about it, like making an attempt to bear in mind a dream on waking up. So likewise I wrestle to demonstrate the ideas powering my operate, they are manifestations of inner thoughts and ideas that float in my head for a extended time, creating up and then turning out to be illustrations or photos on the canvas.
The Horror of Our Graphic Will Unravel, 2022, oil on canvas, 75 x 75cm
How has your observe developed in new a long time?
I made use of to make do the job incredibly promptly and really compulsively and impatiently. I would also depend a ton on humour and even integrate text in my operate. Due to the fact my perform discounts with existential themes, I felt I experienced to inject humour to make my work easier to system and interact with. Little by little I moved away from the text and cartoony get the job done, and in the final 18 months or so, because moving to London, I have tried out to spend more time with each individual piece, make my function extra complex, and enable go of employing humour as a defence system (in my work anyhow ha!).
Age of Glass, 2021, Oil, oil pastels on canvas, 75 x 75cm
What is an typical day like in your studio?
I like preserving a schedule when it comes to having a studio follow, which allows me to deliver structure to the chaos that is art-creating. So I commonly arrive in the early morning and perform until the early evening, with 1 swift break for lunch. I check out my studio as a tranquil and tranquil workspace, in which I can target and paint in contrast to other artists, I really do not seriously “hang” in my studio, I rarely invite pals more than, and I don’t nap or go through in the studio. For me, it is strictly a place to make function.
Aviv’s workstation in her studio
How do you go about making every single work?
I are likely to function intuitively, and rarely sketch prior to generating a new portray. I typically start every single piece with a colourful abstract ground and respond to the styles and gestures that are “established” on the canvas. Then I slowly define the illustrations or photos throughout the painting method and respond to the environment that is made in front of me on the canvas, until finally I come to a decision the piece is completed. The symbols and imagery that inform my paintings also acquire intuitively, and their reappearance in various canvases generates a narrative that stretches about a collection of operates.
Sights of Nocturnal Melt away, 2022, oil, oil pastels on canvas, 130 x 130cm
What/Who are your essential influences?
As a nerdy painter, I am really impressed by the get the job done of other painters, specifically gutsy painters who drive the boundaries of the medium and make daring, considerate, and unsettling work. I experience that portray, additional than any other medium, certainly follows the strategy of “standing on the shoulders of giants”, and just about every portray is created in light-weight of or despite the rich heritage of portray. In my personal practice, if I seem for inspiration, or if I get trapped making an attempt to take care of a portray, I discover the remedies inside of the get the job done of painters I value, or check out a assortment in a museum I adore, and this typically does the trick. Another key affect is looking at poetry. I appear from a loved ones of writers and my grandfather was an established poet, who would usually stimulate me to study and analyse poems increasing up. Several of my titles are encouraged by poems and I see them as a further “key” to looking at my paintings. Just before commencing a new collection I would read poetry that I experience will notify the get the job done in a way I are not able to really reveal, but feels suitable. Once a piece is finished I will check out the exact same poems yet again, in get to title the perform, which in a way is “completing” the method of making.
The Day Empties Its Illustrations or photos, 2021, oil, oil pastels, spray paint on canvas, 127 x 127cm
Who are some Increase Artwork artists with get the job done you are having fun with at the moment?
I truly like Sabrina Shah’s function, her expressive and chaotic paintings are compelling and amazing in a punk kind of way, I also appreciate Olga Shcheblykina textured, darkish, and humorist creations, and Christine Lyon’s vivid, elaborate and intricate bodily perform.
Aviv’s functions shown in her studio (@enamel_aspiration)
Are you presently performing on any thrilling new initiatives?
I am at present in the procedure of finalising a new body of work and I hope I could reveal more aspects soon, stay tuned!