"Lifting and rotating a pot allows [Benwell] to show all the imagery painted around what is in effect a three-dimensional canvas, or, in his words, ‘a little bit like a short film. The imagery unspools around it, and suggests a narrative'." – Sonia Harford, Potted history of one who broke the mould, The Age & Sydney Morning Herald, 2013

In his paintings, ceramics and bronzes, Benwell both references and challenges classical forms, presenting fragments of full statues, suggestive of archaeological finds, alongside busts and statues of the male nude. His signature painterly style covers the surface of his stoneware and earthenware vessels and figures. No matter the theme, all is observed through Benwell’s distinct style, continuing his contemporary perspective on traditions of beauty, and other art-historical influences.

Born in Melbourne in 1953, Stephen Benwell is Australia’s most distinguished ceramicist and was honored with a retrospective survey of his work at Heide Museum of Modern Art in 2013. In the same year, Benwell was selected to exhibit in Melbourne Now, the National Gallery of Victoria’s survey of contemporary creative practice. Benwell has been the recipient of the Sidney Myer Fund Australian Ceramic Award, has been a finalist in the Hobart Art Prize, the Fletcher Jones Art Prize and in 2009 was awarded the Inaugural Deakin University Small Sculpture Award and an Australia Council Visual Arts Board New Work Grant.

[ To view Stephen Benwell's CV click here ]

Box with lid, 2016
earthenware
9 x 8 x 7.5cm
19079