KIM BENSON // LONG SWEET GONE // 10.1.22 – 11.19.22
Kim Benson LONG SWEET GONE was exhibited at TOA Presents in partnership with Rob Sherer(the Orange Advisory), located at 655 19th Ave NE, Suite 104.
HAIR+NAILS and TOA Presents are pleased to announce Kim Benson — LONG SWEET GONE, an exhibition of paintings that continue Benson’s process of “doing and undoing” her rich, abstract surfaces.
References to Renaissance paintings, whether in image or color palette, populate many of Benson’s canvases, establishing a historical ground for exploration and excavation. Materially and metaphorically, representations dissolve under a multitude of strategies that include sanding, stenciling, casting, and extruding, as well as more traditional modes of application by brush. The result of this ouroboric process is LONG SWEET GONE, a series of hallucinogenic abstractions that at times feel solid and sculptural like a stucco wall and at others like a gossamer curtain undulating in a soft breeze.
In navigating the history of painting as well as her own excessive processes of repetition and erasure, time emerges as a conceit in Benson’s work; viewer and artist are together suspended in geological, art historical, personal, and anthropocenic time scales materialized in paint.
Artist bio:
Kim Benson received her MFA from University of Wisconsin, Madison, and her BFA from the College of Visual Arts in St. Paul, MN. Her paintings have previously appeared at HAIR+NAILS in her solo exhibition HELL DAISY (2020) and group exhibitions The Human Scale at Rochester Art Center (2021), NADA Chicago Invitational (2019), HAIR+NAILS at 9 Herkimer in Brooklyn (2019), and Relief—Three Fresh Approaches to Building Surface (2018). Benson’s work has also appeared at MANA Contemporary (Chicago), Museum of Wisconsin Art (West Bend, WI), Plains Art Museum (Fargo, ND), Bockley Gallery (Minneapolis). She has attended residences at La Macina di San Cresci, Adams State University, McCanna House with the North Dakota Museum of Art, Jentel Foundation, and the Soap Factory. Benson is an adjunct professor of art at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.
http://www.kimberlybenson.net
ABOUT TOA PRESENTS:
TOA Presents is a flexible exhibition space in the Northeast neighborhood of Minneapolis, created as a brick-and-mortar extension of The Orange Advisory’s commitment to supporting emerging and mid-career artists. TOA Presents primarily functions as a rotating venue for national and international galleries seeking to connect with Twin Cities audiences through one and two month-long residencies. Since launching in August 2021, TOA Presents has collaborated with 10 galleries from Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and San Francisco to feature the work of more than 40 artists. www.theorangeadvisory.com