bencressy

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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Flipped Composition Starts

Drawing is half the battle. I thought that it would be interesting to try a process of flipping a composition as a starting point, partly as a shortcut and to see if the composition ‘works’. I also wanted to try some ‘faster’ process using acrylic paint, so starting with a smaller scale, working out a sketch using acrylic and then flipping it on a larger painting for oil. Of course I let it evolve and diverge some (or rather a lot), and then let the painting aspects of color schemes and later discovery processes play out. Here are a couple of experiments…

Some swings of color and a bit of terror…

Interior with Mismatched Furniture, 2024
acrylic on canvas
24 x 18 inches
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This painting I felt a need for a jarring aspect. The color has a harsh transition between top and bottom, and the chairs can’t seem to be on the same plane. It coincided with the 2024 election, and for this reason I will let it be as uncomfortable as it is.

Interior with Mismatched Furniture and Floor, 2024
oil on canvas
40 x 30 inches
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In these two I decided to simplify the color schemes, and let the perspective twist do its thing.

Red and Pink Interior with Gentle Shifting, 2024
acrylic on canvas
24 x 18 inches
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Interior Beginning to Twist, 2024
oil on canvas
40 x 30 inches
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Chairs contemplating

Chairs are really a placeholder for a person. While empty, I imagine they might have a life of their own in which they converse with or comment on their environment. Sometimes the art on the wall says more about the space than the room itself.

Interior Contemplating a Square, 2024
oil on canvas
30 x 24 inches
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Interior with Pink Chair and Landscape, 2024
acrylic on canvas
24 x 18 inches
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Floors and Experiments

Having a construct (the set of symbols and general sense of how the painting plays out) allows for a separation of ideas.
In this painting, I decided to limit the colors on my palette, and strip out the ornamentation of pattern. I was on the fence with this piece, but it has grown on me. It feels soft, but also slightly eerie.

Quiet Interior without Embellishments, 2023
oil on canvas
40 x 30 inches
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This painting makes me laugh. The inset painting of a person on a horse (all made up) is a bit ridiculous, as is the large, fleshy pink form of the rug. To me it looks like a tongue or a slab of processed meat. The dark form at the top is a ceiling shape, twisting off of the walls perhaps.

The Somewhat Humorous Interior, 2024
oil on canvas
40 x 30 inches
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Another clash of color, and a slippery warped floor on which the chair seems about to slide. This painting will benefit from a frame soon.

Interior with Warped Rug, 2024
oil on canvas
40 x 30 inches
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