commune

1st(Sat) – 11th(tue) June, 2019

Opening Reception : 6/1 SAT 6-8pm

At gallery commune

“Burden of Blossom” presents a new body of paintings on paper by Heather Benjamin.
The focal point of the exhibition, a new series of 23 sequential works entitled “Conjure a Smoldering Rose I – XXⅢ”, stars the same lone cowgirl that has populated Benjamin’s recent work.

The cowgirl inhabits her psychedelic emotional landscape in a perpetual state of rapture, ricocheting between the extremes of existential awareness and struggling to understand her own power of evolution and to harness her love energy.
Benjamin’s work has always been deeply diaristic and autobiographical, and this new body of work is no exception.
Her figures embody the many facets of the artist’s psyche as she moves through different phases of womanhood. This chapter of her narrative is an attempt to manifest tender strength, power, and evolution, as the untamed cowgirl is on the run from previous restraints, trauma, and past versions of herself, which, however uncomfortable and disturbing, must be acknowledged, understood, and paid homage before they are laid to rest to make room for new energy.

Heather Benjamin (b. Tarrytown, NY 1989) lives and works in New York City. She graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2016 with a BFA in Printmaking. Benjamin began self-publishing zines and artist books of her drawings in 2008. Since then, she has maintained her bookmaking and self–publishing practices while simultaneously branching out into making larger scale drawings and paintings, as well as animating, working with ceramics and textiles, and curating. All her work is firmly rooted in DIY/punk ethics and culture and feminist ideas. She has exhibited her work extensively, most recently mounting solo exhibitions in New York at Muddguts and in Los Angeles at These Days. “Burden of Blossom” is her first exhibition in Japan.
baby-fat.net
instagram: @heatherbenjamin_