This weekend is your last chance to see Fred Bendheim’s Making Space, a series of seven curvilinear shaped paintings bursting with radiant circles and exuberant spirals.
The works in Making Space were created in the last 15 months, in the midst of the lockdown, when Bendheim was able to work freely at his Sunset Park studio with few distractions. The artist’s process begins with visceral drawings. “A lot of it is free association, just drawing what appeals to me, different shapes, and I make compositions from those,” he explained at 440 Gallery where the exhibit is on view. “The last 15, 20 years I’ve been doing this sort of experiment, just painting what looks good to me, keeping it at that level. That cuts out a lot of the intellectual stuff, which I think gets in the way often, and then one thing leads to another.” Based on his drawings, Bendheim will then work on watercolor studies which eventually lead to his final acrylic paintings.
“I like the freedom of it. I can do any shape I want, and it just allows me a certain freedom,” he said of his preference for a sculptural foundation versus a more traditional canvas. “These don’t have corners. Four corners can really influence your composition.”
Bendheim began creating his intricate shaped paintings 15 years ago. “Originally, I did them on wood and…sometimes they would warp,” he explained. “A few of the pieces I wanted the grain, but [overall] I wanted [the paint] flat.” About seven years ago, Bendheim switched to PVC board, a material used by sign makers.
For his current series, Bendheim focused on circular shapes. “I love seeing spiral shapes,” he said. “I love the energy of them, how they go inward and outward at the same time. How they’re still but they move. These sorts of dichotomies fascinate me.” Spiral patterns common in Native American art may have influenced Bendheim’s paintings, the artist said. Originally from Arizona, he grew up seeing a lot of Native American art and finding petroglyphs, elaborately carved rocks, in the desert.
“And the spiral relates to the cosmos,” he said of another influence. The shapes and swirls in Making Space suggest an otherworldliness—planets, galaxies, and star formations. “I like stuff like this where the spirals go off kilter and some interesting things happen,” he said of the cloud-shaped Sunset. “These spirals on top of these radiating concentric circles…that kind of happened by accident.”
In the ellipse-shaped Influence, a viewer might perceive a sun and moon in the various color shifts that transition from dark to light. This piece was the last created in the series and features a much softer, more serene palette than the other vividly hued works.
The element of transparency, where overlapping colors meet and interplay, adds to the celestial quality of Bendheim’s paintings. “It looks like you can see through everything,” Bendheim said, but instead of using a glaze to achieve this effect, he separately mixed the colors where they intersect before meticulously layering the paint for a translucent appearance.
“I like the look of the transparency,” Bendheim said, adding that it alludes to “the Buddhist idea that matter is not real. There is no ultimate reality. Matter is transparent. Things that we take for reality are part of a larger reality...the unsubstantial [nature] of things.”
Bendheim hopes his paintings will make viewers “feel connected to the universe,” he said, or “make mental and spiritual space for humanity,” according to the show’s press release. “People say they’re very optimistic,” the artist noted of his spellbinding works. “I’m not an optimistic person but I guess deep down there’s something there.”
Bendheim received a degree in Studio Art from Pomona College in Claremont, California. Following school, he moved to San Francisco where he met his wife. The couple moved to Brooklyn in 1984. Bendheim has been a member of 440 Gallery for eight years. Making Space is his fifth solo exhibit at the gallery.
Meet Bendheim at 440 Gallery on Sunday, June 27, during the closing reception for the show from 5pm to 7pm. Bendheim’s work will also be included in a group exhibition at Gallery MC in Manhattan next month. See more of Fred Bendheim's work at the artist's website.
Fred Bendheim | Making Space
440 Gallery, 440 6th Avenue, Park Slope
May 26 through June 27, 2021
Closing reception: Sunday, June 27, 5pm to 7pm
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