BENINI
Benini's exhibition career started with a one-man show in Milan, Italy in 1961. During his late teens and early 20's, Benini painted landscapes and still lifes in a traditional style. By 1965, his painting evolved into large-scale
monochromatic renderings of the human figure.
From the mid-1970's, he alternated large-scale representations of the rose and dream-like paintings with strong symbolist content. During the mid-1980's, Benini's work took a sharp turn toward geometry and the mathematical sciences.
In this series, Benini created paintings with a highly disciplined technique, requiring up to 20 layers of acrylic paint applied by brush, giving a glow to pigments transforming familiar geometric and organic shapes into lyrical canvases that, stretched over flat aluminum, hang inches from the wall, creating the feeling of dimension.
In 2003, in Texas, Benini began his Courting Kaos Series, with a different application that combined his hand-blended backgrounds and selectively dropped acrylics in highly controlled patterns, that are now evolving into large-scale pieces..
These paintings, related to Italian Baroque and Rococo art, as well as the simple elegance of Islamic pattern art, have evolved into space age imagery.
To date, Benini has had 162 one-man exhibitions, primarily in universities, public institutions and museums.
In 1999, Benini and his wife Lorraine purchased 147 acres in the Texas Hill Country that have been turned into The Benini Galleries and Sculpture Ranch. A 14,000 sq.ft. building encompasses the galleries, the offices, and the fine arts library as well as as the private studio where Benini paints through the night.
On the surrounding hilly, Mediterranean-like landscape, national and international sculptors are placing large-scale contemporary works. A website is devoted to this project where 110 large-scale sculptures are featured by contemporary artists.
Through the years, Benini has also produced a number of assemblages, that he calls divertimenti. Varying in size from a few inches to 15 feet, these divertimenti are built with different materials: wood, steel, stone and more recently, granite.
The Sculpture Ranch and Galleries are open the first full weekend of each month from 10 to 6. For tours and large groups, please call ahead.
