Interview with Aviv Benn: A dreamlike world that goes beyond the canvas

Aviv Benn has recently joined Increase Art, bringing her expressionistic functions to the platform. Her paintings are a visual universe starring symbolic archetypes and fantastical types that pop up, reappear, and combine to formulate the dreamlike planet they inhabit. By repeating the exact imagery more than a lot of canvases, she informs a narrative that stretches significantly outside of the boundaries of a singular portray. Weaving new associations with each other, she constructs a vivid, interconnecting fantasy in the course of her performs.

Aviv in her studio with many items from her fantastical dreamlike entire world (Image: Omer Gaash)

How would you describe the artwork you build?

Paintings, generally oil on canvas.

Cosmos Inhaler, 2021, oil, spray paint, linocut and wax medium on canvas, 70 x 60cm

Convey to us a bit about the inspiration driving your follow

Any time folks ask me the concern each and every painter dreads, “So.. what is your operate about?” or “Can you inform me about what you paint?” I jokingly say “How a lot the planet sucks.” I guess it is my way of expressing how I offer with existential dread, the uncertainty of staying, and this present-day period and its lots of upheavals. That is the inspiration at the rear of my perform in terms of subject issue. As a painter, nevertheless, I test to force issues ahead from a follow/medium-dependent point of view, to make additional astonishing perform, and to make just about every piece a little far better than the past. That is what evokes me and keeps me busy in the studio.

Not Haste Into A Landscape, 2021, oil, spray paint, oil pastels on canvas, 65 x 65cm

How do you appear up with the thoughts for your artworks?

The themes in my do the job get many years to explore, and every single body of operate reveals yet another side of a world I am developing little bit by bit. Each and every series explores a set of symbols, creatures, and painterly environments that notify a cohesive nonetheless abstract story. The imagery released in just about every series is intuitive and operates as a distorted mirror of our entire world. Painting is a medium that defies words (just talk to painters how significantly they despise producing all those artist statements, hehe). There is anything elusive about it, like attempting to don’t forget a desire upon waking up. So in the same way I struggle to clarify the concepts at the rear of my get the job done, they are manifestations of thoughts and feelings that float in my head for a very long time, constructing up and then turning out to be photographs on the canvas.

The Horror of Our Impression Will Unravel, 2022, oil on canvas, 75 x 75cm

How has your observe developed in latest many years?

I utilized to make get the job done quite rapidly and pretty compulsively and impatiently. I would also depend a lot on humour and even integrate text in my perform. Considering that my function promotions with existential themes, I felt I experienced to inject humour to make my perform easier to process and interact with. Little by little I moved away from the textual content and cartoony do the job, and in the past 18 months or so, because relocating to London, I have tried out to commit extra time with just about every piece, make my do the job additional complicated, and allow go of utilizing humour as a defence system (in my do the job anyhow ha!).

Age of Glass, 2021, Oil, oil pastels on canvas, 75 x 75cm

What is an common working day like in your studio?

I like preserving a program when it will come to having a studio practice, which aids me to convey structure to the chaos that is artwork-generating. So I usually get there in the morning and function till the early evening, with 1 speedy crack for lunch. I perspective my studio as a silent and tranquil workspace, exactly where I can concentration and paint contrary to other artists, I really do not really “hang” in my studio, I seldom invite mates above, and I never nap or read in the studio. For me, it is strictly a area to make get the job done.

Aviv’s workstation in her studio

How do you go about earning each operate?

I tend to function intuitively, and rarely sketch prior to producing a new portray. I usually begin every single piece with a colourful summary ground and react to the designs and gestures that are “established” on the canvas. Then I slowly but surely define the images for the duration of the portray procedure and respond to the planet that is made in entrance of me on the canvas, till I come to a decision the piece is finished. The symbols and imagery that tell my paintings also establish intuitively, and their reappearance in many canvases generates a narrative that stretches above a sequence of functions.

Sights of Nocturnal Burn up, 2022, oil, oil pastels on canvas, 130 x 130cm

What/Who are your vital influences?

As a nerdy painter, I am seriously influenced by the work of other painters, specially gutsy painters who thrust the boundaries of the medium and build daring, considerate, and unsettling get the job done. I truly feel that painting, far more than any other medium, certainly follows the concept of “standing on the shoulders of giants”, and each painting is developed in light of or irrespective of the wealthy history of portray. In my personal follow, if I look for inspiration, or if I get stuck seeking to solve a painting, I come across the answers in just the perform of painters I take pleasure in, or pay a visit to a collection in a museum I really like, and this usually does the trick. One more major influence is looking at poetry. I appear from a household of writers and my grandfather was an proven poet, who would often stimulate me to examine and analyse poems increasing up. Many of my titles are encouraged by poems and I see them as a different “key” to studying my paintings. Prior to starting a new sequence I would read through poetry that I feel will notify the get the job done in a way I simply cannot genuinely explain, but feels ideal. The moment a piece is finished I will stop by the exact poems once again, in get to title the get the job done, which in a way is “completing” the course of action of making.

The Working day Empties Its Photos, 2021, oil, oil pastels, spray paint on canvas, 127 x 127cm

Who are some Rise Artwork artists with work you are making the most of at the moment?

I truly like Sabrina Shah’s work, her expressive and chaotic paintings are persuasive and awesome in a punk sort of way, I also appreciate Olga Shcheblykina textured, dark, and humorist creations, and Christine Lyon’s vivid, complicated and intricate bodily do the job.

Aviv’s performs exhibited in her studio (@enamel_dream)

Are you at present doing the job on any fascinating new assignments?

I am at this time in the system of finalising a new human body of work and I hope I could expose extra details before long, keep tuned!