Artist Louisa Benhissen spoke at her exhibit “Social Landscapes in California and Other Works” at Art Space on Main in downtown Turlock on March 9.
The exhibit features various works of art that focus on the human condition with different collections of paintings and graphite drawings depicting humans in natural and urban landscapes as well as portraits and figure paintings.
A collection of paintings called Land Without People features tourists visiting natural landscapes, taking pictures with their phones rather than enjoying the natural scenery without any distractions.
Benhissen, a United Kingdom native who took creative interest in the California lifestyle, says that she finds inspiration in new areas, people and experiences.
“It’s a lot to do with technology and how people are interacting with technology in the natural environment,” Benhissen said.
One of her paintings, Land Without Tourists, shows three people posing for a snapshot while on a hike. In Yosemite Falls Through a Screen, two women are perched near the waterfall while one of them takes a picture of the scenery with her phone.
“It’s this paradox between what people are doing and then this absolutely wilderness environment and how they’re interacting with it or not,” Benhissen said.
Most of Benhissen’s pictures are derivations from photographs, but she will sometimes create realist paintings in unusual landscapes. She once painted an author in a dress on Mars.
But most of her work from photography tends to focus on a theme or subject, such as her nail salon collection called Time On Your Hands, because she would like to convey a message to her audience.
She also does mixed media and paintings with live figures, landscapes and models because “that’s how you learn, and that’s a real pure joy of painting.”
As for Benhissen’s subject matter, there are many things that catch her interest.
“A lot of the ideas I have are about women, female issues with appearance and with grooming and the spaces here that are different for me because I’m from England, you know, the neon and the plastic and the lighting and the strip mall and the tabloid and celebrity voyeurism and celebrity culture and gloss and façade and status of women and what they look like to show a certain status.”
But her interests don’t stop there.
“I like other things too—introspective subjects. The last thing to really jump out at me that I’m working on are rodeo queens and almond orchards in blue. I’m just fascinated by blossom here.”
While Benhissen’s subject matter tends to focus on the new present-day, her painting technique is an old one.
“I start with an underpainting, which is a value painting, so you don’t use any colors. It’s just a monochromatic—which means one-color painting—which is transparent, so you work out where your darks, your middle values, and your light values are.”
“I don’t really use a brush for that that much, and then afterwards, we go over with color.”
She also uses a technique called alla prima, which is a wet-on-wet painting. They are typically done in one sitting, and the artist applies new layers of wet paint over old layers of wet paint on the canvas.
Adam Hogston, a former student of Benhissen, is familiar with both of these techniques.
“She taught me how to do an underpainting and do overpainting, and then we had the alla prima sessions,” Hogston said.
“The underpainting and overpainting has been in tradition since Jan van Eyck hundreds and hundreds of years ago. It’s funny because alla prima painting is a lot more current in style.”
Hogston describes Benhissen’s work as spontaneous and her teaching as important.
“She teaches the old master techniques that a lot of other schools don’t pay a lot of attention to these days, even major universities, art schools, they just ignore all that. And everything after the 1920s is what they teach when there’s so much more.”
A current student of Benhissen, Michelle Von Waaden, came to check out her professor’s exhibition.
“She’s showed us some of her work in class before, and I really like it. It’s awesome to see a whole show of her stuff. She’s a very good instructor. She’s very hands-on. If you need help, she’ll help you. She’s a great teacher and a great artist.,” Von Waaden said.
Benhissen currently teaches at Merced College, and her art exhibit will stay at Art Space on Main until April 1.