PRESS
SAGE · (author) · 2021
Sage belongs to artist Jana Benitez’s new body of work which will be featured in her forthcoming solo exhibition at Pearl Lam, Hong Kong, this Fall. In this work—and the series at large—Benitez embraces the full spectrum of her own mark-making as a means to register bodily knowledge. Her gestural technique invites consideration of painting’s capacity not only to bring awareness to embodied, energetic experiences, but also to transmit nuanced, near primordial, information from artist to viewer(s).
Sage anticipates a body standing before it; living, breathing, feeling, and responding to the work. Its rectangle echoes the proportions of an average human form (height and wingspan), while its central vertical axis acts as the “spine” of the painting. Vibrant activity in the lower portion matches the height of the viewer’s lower belly, or dantian (the traditional Chinese name for our energy center).
For Benitez, this involvement of the viewer’s presence revolts against the idea of creation as a statement of individual artistic genius. Instead, Sage activates the intimacy of relations—between artist, object and viewer. Like a mantra or prayer, Sage embodies the artist’s yearning to explore and understand the vastness of our inner worlds, the nature of collective consciousness, and the enigmatic relationship between the two.
ASIAN ART NEWS · A. GUILLERMO · 2012
ABSTRACT WALL TEXT · BINGHAO WONG · 2012
“The work of Jana Benitez is ripe with the promise of contemporary art at the cutting edge of the visual.”
Alice Guillermo
Jana Benitez creates a novel approach to the expression of the human form by collapsing the dichotomy of the human form between the external human body and the inner human spirit. She brings the painterly tradition of Abstract Expressionism into this unique figurative exploration. Her works begin with a rush of colors and marks, abounding with energy and inchoate form. Each composition arises spontaneously, inspired by intense physical sensations and developed through intuition, careful brushwork, and subtle layering. The ever-present suggestion of specific yet amorphous figures delicately point towards implied narratives. They reflect her persistent search for insight into how it feels and what it means to be embodied. For Benitez, our bodies are rich reservoirs of memories and knowledge. Emotions, ideas, relationships and experiences do not exist in an ethereal realm, but instead are grounded in our carnal materiality. Her work therefore touches upon something both deeply personal and widely universal.
figurative wall text · binghao wong · 2012
Jana Benitez belongs to the tradition of painters, from early European Expressionists to mid-20th century American and British painters, who achieved a sense of aliveness in their portrayal of the human form. Like her predecessors, Benitez invents new ways to depict human exuberance on canvas, alchemically transforming paint into flesh, emotion, and raw energy. For over a decade, Benitez has been committed to this legacy of invigoration and vitality. It is no wonder then that her contribution is fresh and uniquely her own. She paints with a heightened sense of being, channeling colossal energy into her dynamic and emphatic portrayals of the human figure.