The Art of Stephen Bennett

Article by Tom Kenny

There must be hundreds of ways to portray Co. Donegal in paint - through its mountains, rivers, bogscapes, rugged coastline, wildflowers etc. Stephen Bennett has chosen to do this through its people - mostly male - at work and at play. We see these men digging the field, at the cattle mart, having a pint, playing music or maybe just talking. These are keenly observed honest portrayals of real people, who are obviously relaxed and comfortable in the presence of this artist. They are not posing, merely being themselves. There is a familiarity about many of his subjects - one has the feeling of having met them before.

It is always a major challenge for an artist to represent the everyday to us in a way that is new and different, that makes us look afresh at and perhaps better appreciate and understand our environment. Stephen does just that, showing us his friends and neighbours at home in their natural surroundings. It is a dangerous genre that it is all too easy to fall into the trap of painting stage-irish caricatures or tourist board images. Happily Stephen resists that temptation.

He has had the courage to follow his dream moving from a well-paid challenging job in London to open his own gallery in Donegal. He also shows courage in his painting, he is not afraid of colour, or of scale, or of experimenting. In recent times he has begun to work in landscape. His exciting fresh treatment of the hinterland around Ardara is imbued with energy and colour. They remind me of a story of a Jack Yeats exhibition opening once when a lady said to him "I love your paintings Mr. Yeats, but I never saw a sky like that before". "Ah, but don't you wish you had" replied Yeats.

Looking at Stephen's paintings we see magical skies and how they illuminate the landscape with constantly moving and changing light. He has, in a remarkably short space of time, developed a highly personal and identifiable style - an artist to watch.

Tom Kenny - The Kenny Gallery, Galway