bencressy

2026 Slab Wall

The idea of capturing a dense vast wall is something I’ve been interested in. An unadorned slab of blankness, yet capturing a shift of light to give it depth and pushing the paint in an attempt at imbuing an emotion. While somewhat bleak, I do find the glimmer of hope in them.

Interior with Imposing Blank Wall and Draining Rug, 2026
oil on canvas
30 x 40 inches
(this photo has glare on the distant wall, which is rust to maroon reds)
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Interior with Large Wall and Lone Lamp, 2026
oil on canvas
30 x 24 inches
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Discordant Interior with Vastness and Ladder, 2026
oil on canvas
40 x 30 inches
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2026 starts

Sometimes a painting is mostly about color. I find yellow in combination with others to be the most challenging. These also hint at the question (an ever present question), where is the viewer in the space?

Interior with Stairwell Rug, 2026
oil on canvas
30 x 24 inches
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Sloped Interior with Pit Rug, 2026
oil on canvas
30 x 24 inches
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Candy Apple Red Interior with Peach, 2026
oil on canvas
30 x 24 inches
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Subtle or Not

Finding meaning and purpose in painting can be a struggle. In my early years as an painter, I used to wear my heart on my sleeve and paint from the gut – raw emotions depicted and on the surface. As I’ve grown, the subject and meaning are more subtle, below the surface to be discovered by looking, thinking and feeling. While I avoid the dictates of illustrational image making, I do think the subject and meaning find their way in.

This painting is a reflection of the political divide in America, c.2025. Hi intensity circus colors, with ground cleaving a chasm reminiscent of a gear/mill form (where do the cylinders meet?) separate the chair entities. Is it coming together, or spreading apart? The ambiguity is intentional, and the meaning can shift as the viewer (mostly me) changes with.

Garish Clown Interior with Chasm, 2025
oil on canvas
40 x 30 inches

Color

Interior with Confronting Ghostly Green Chair, 2025
oil on canvas
24 x 18 inches

Another where the smaller canvas becomes the starting point for the large. Interested in a flatter, larger feel.
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Interior with Minimalist Abstraction, 2025
oil on canvas
40 x 30 inches

Composition flipped from the smaller piece, but stripped the color down.
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Interior with Linked Overlaps, 2025
oil on canvas
30 x 24 inches
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Interior Warping Flat with Deconstructing, 2025
oil on canvas
30 x 24 inches

Taking out the chair and inserting a jumble of marks that get rooted to a space. I’ve always enjoyed a deconstructed portrait. The warping of the floor and left wall is countered by the flatness of the wall and ceiling shape.
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2025 More drawings.

I generally work 2 drawings side by side and rotate them out when I’m done with working on them. This group is roughly from May to September, 2025.

Charcoal interior with Radiant Abstractions, 2025
charcoal on paper
25 x 19 inches
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Charcoal interior Cupcakes and Exterior Landscape, 2025
charcoal on paper
25 x 19 inches
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Charcoal Interior Long Looping, 2025
charcoal on paper
25 x 19 inches
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Charcoal Interior Contemplating the Edge with Ice Cream, 2025
charcoal on paper
25 x 19 inches
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Charcoal Interior with Sofa and Deserts, 2025
charcoal on paper
25 x 19 inches
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Charcoal Interior with Imposing Portrait, 2025
charcoal on paper
25 x 19 inches
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Charcoal Interior with Half Started Landscape, 2025
charcoal on paper
25 x 19 inches
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Shifting and Shattering

With these two paintings I used the process of converting the orientation of the paintings composition (vertical first, then horizontal). The concepts are sill the same, with the distance between chair entities. The floor is a shifting and shattering design.

Interior with Chasm and Shifting Floor, 2024-25
acrylic on canvas
30 x 24 inches

The rendering of the chairs is comparing a sharp, linear feel with a softer, rounder design.
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Interior with Nested Chairs and Chasm, 2024-25
acrylic on canvas
30 x 40 inches

Chairs trying to occupy the same space.
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Rugs Confounding

Interior with Two Illusional Rugs, 2025
oil on canvas
30 x 24 inches

The sense of looking down while simultaneously looking in has intrigued me for quite some time. With its scale shift from a large, low, close up view to distant above view, helps to create a confounded sense of spatial context.
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Calm Interior with Imploding Rug, 2024
acrylic on canvas
24 x 18 inches

This quick painting is devoid of a chair (in the ‘main space), having a carpet that seems to be sucking everything in.
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Darkly

Interior with Mildly Tortured Pink Chair, 2025
acrylic and oil on canvas
30 x 24 inches

In reflecting on our political climate, this chair painting conveys a sense of being worn and beaten. Rough and maybe even slightly slimy.

Charcoal drawings

Charcoal Interior with Escaping Landscape, 2024
charcoal on paper
24 x 19 inches
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Charcoal Interior Divided by a Void, 2024
charcoal on paper
24 x 19 inches
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Charcoal Interior with Thrashing Chair and Calm, 2025
charcoal on paper
24 x 19 inches
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Charcoal Interior with Flat Distance, 2024-25
charcoal on paper
24 x 19 inches
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Charcoal Interior with Picture Looiking In, 2025
charcoal on paper
24 x 19 inches
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Charcoal Interior with Patterned Chair and Rushing Wall, 2025
charcoal on paper
24 x 19 inches
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Charcoal Interior with Oppositional Chairs, 2025
charcoal on paper
24 x 19 inches
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Formalism

Sometimes a painting is primarily an exercise in design choices. Usually they start this way for me, and ‘meaning’ is found during the process of exploring relationships.

Interior with Black Ceilings, 2024
oil on canvas
30 x 24 inches

Balance and counter balance. The play of similar shape blocks of the portrait on the wall and the door to another room. The pattern/embellishment of the circular rug pattern and the angular grid on the wall. The relationship dark ceiling shapes to the shape of the chair. The shift of flavors of blue for the walls.
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White Minimalist Interior with Rose Chair Picture, 2024
acrylic on canvas
24 x 18 inches

An exploration of light gray with undertones. A stripped out space with an oversize picture within picture, which suggests a comparison of cropping distances.

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Interior with Comparable Rhythms, 2024
acrylic on canvas
24 x 18 inches

Sharp angular floor vs. curved wall embellishment. Opposing abstractions. The figurative form is in an ‘over dramatic’ pose to fill the frame.

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Interior with Encroaching Patterns, 2025
Acrylic and Oil on canvas
30 x 24 inches

A funky floor pattern of ‘blubbery forms’. Curving rectilinear and oval pattern.
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