This exhibition from Anthony Bennett, although small, is in part a mini-retrospective. It features some early works from a series concerned with railway stations in West Berlin, where Anthony worked for several years. Also included are some semi-abstract works completed more recently.
“… Or lets put it another way; achievements are often unsought after. So Anthony Bennett’s achievement is mainly due to his openness to change and the autonomy of the working process. An artist will be able to learn something new from his or her work. It knows more than the artist does. Just because Anthony Bennett is aware of these things, his work can convey an attitude of wonder and stillness. It is this process itself that is made visible in his paintings. …“
(Prof. Wilhelm Gauger)
”…Perhaps in time all this will cease to matter. Art tends sooner or later to float free of.biography. What one generation finds harsh, squalid, unartistic, cold, the next finds a truthful, even beautiful version of life and how it should be represented – or rather intensified. Two or three generations ago, Stanley Spencer’s nudes shocked many. This little man posing himself naked besides voluminous women – indeed wives – whose breasts obeyed the law of gravity. Now such pictures seem, yes, gentle, tender works, and a true depiction of love and lust’s playfulness. …“
(Julian Barnes ‘Keeping an Eye Open’)
TRUST THE ART NOT THE ARTIST
