Born 1998

Lives and works in Birmingham, UK​

​

Benny Watson's darkly humorous paintings explore the tension and glimmers of hope in the modern "conditioned" age. His large, gestural works are created with vigour - relying on impulse and movement, and a sharp focus on colour and material itself. Benny's recent work steals visual elements of street art and post-vandalism, contrasting it with a wealth of personal and archival material to express narratives around concealment, suppression and control. He is drawn to looking at the relationship between public spaces, nature and the act of destruction, both materially and conceptually. Employing the use of mixed media; fabric, photographs, paper and sand as he constantly adds and subtracts, building up dense coats of texture beneath and atop each other. The painting constructs itself whilst tearing itself apart, allowing yet denying each layer; a delicate dance between the medium and the artist that creates kinetic tension. His education as a filmmaker gives his work this focus on narrative - abstract narratives told in colour that are influenced heavily by music and film, nature and mythology. The self-taught UK born and based artist creates a blackly comic visual language that is rooted in abstract expressionism yet remains absolutely contemporary.