A piety through paint, the artworks of Nils Benson remind us: wherever you are, wonderland is here.
Dedicated and delighted in the practice of oil painting, Benson is at liberty to play. Marveling in his everyday observations and dreaming up fantastic lands, he conjures his own representation of a world unfolding before him.
The artist himself is a kind of lens - Benson makes paintings with a careful focus of attention. A hierarchy in detail which renders nature supreme: his paintings have a dedicated clarity exclusive to the environment. Animalia comes next in this rank of distinction. Some are symbolic, representative of a partner, friends or Benson himself. Others are observed, captured in their habitat like a film still, a reminder that wonder exists in the world exactly as you sense it. What few humans inhabit these paintings are sparse in their detail, apparitions embedded in otherwise vibrating compositions.
In front of these paintings, there’s a chance to delight in a fantasy of observing the world through varying lenses - a microscope, a pair of binoculars, a camera. It is possible to find these shifting perspectives simultaneously. Organized in a kind of rasterization, paint strokes and planes of color resemble metallic grain structures or chloroplast at the microscopic level: a fluctuating unit that also functions confidently on its own in each distinct hue and mark. Green, in its wild variations, is amok in each painting, anchoring the firmament to the Sainte Terre. As the eye wanders, verdant hues remain a constant - a reminder of the richness found here on Earth. Benson’s compartmentalization of paint suggests his unique view of the natural world.
In Falcon we are so zeroed in on this creature that we might as well be perched on the branch across from the bird - interrupting its feast, stalking - that, or human innovation down on the ground. The creature has been rendered with a tender clarity, while its surroundings undulate capriciously, akin to squinting one’s eyes to see a simplified mass of form and colour, or the shifting view of binoculars as you find your focus.
To do as much as wonder in our everyday lives, to pause and observe, that’s a gift accessible to all. Nils Benson’s paintings are a record of that wonder - a richness of living through paint. His work serves as a gentle reminder of this fact: that to be open to receiving the abundance that the world has to offer is to exist in your own wonderland, a heaven on earth. A blue green yonder. - HP Denham
Installation photography: Daniel Sahlberg
Member: 2019 - 2023