"As a self-taught artist, I do still concentrate on studying the postwar artistic avant-garde as well as the political and social life that surrounds us. For me, abstract art doesn't mean that it is abstracted by our day by day living, but that it goes beyond to reach a biggest dream."
Who's degenerated now? - Collage on paper 11.6 x 17,4 x 0.1 in.
Multidisciplinary artist, Benoît Tremblay aka Bent was born in Montreal’s Southwest Borough in 1975. An autodidact, he never studied art in an institution and he happily sees himself as an anti-academic artist. His influences are as wide as a 1000 colours you might place on a palette at the same time.
From Pollock to Basquiat, via Asger Jorn, Lee Krasner, Georg Baselitz or Gil Joseph Wolman and Guy Debord, the painter Bent tries his best to create visual reflections that can disturb life. Since 2004, he has had over 10 solo exhibitions and participated in 7 group art shows. He loves to travel and he sometimes creates work abroad that he finishes in the comfort of his workshop in his garage in Montreal.
Cut dead inside me - Acrylic, paper and ink on canvas 36 x 36 x 2 in.À propos du soleil de minuit - Acrylic, tempera and ink on canvas 24 x 30 x 2 in.
Saouler l'ennuie aux abords des vides - Acrylic and charcoal on canvas 24 x 30 x 2 in.These unknown roads - Acrylic, enamel, charcoal and ink on canvas 40 x 48 x 1 in.
"I have always been interested in surrealist art and magic realism. The figurative aspect is important there. Coming from printmaking, I started out with using existing imagery, but more and more I have been combining collages with painted elements up to the point where the painting takes full control."
La Belle Machiniste - Acrylic and collage 70 x 70 cm
“I was born behind the Iron Curtain in East Germany. I am now living on the surreal shores of Belgium. I studied printmaking in Germany (Berlin, Magdeburg) and Ireland. After many years of producing limited edition prints in all forms, I stopped for a few years my art production and traveled the world extensively. Now I have moved my area of interest to collages and paintings. I like to see myself as a kind of surrealist artist in the tradition of Leonor Fini, Eileen Agar and the likes.
My collages are a juxtaposition of elements, images, and objects incoherent to each other, thereby exercising a de-contextualizing form of violence on language and image alike. They contain a kind of strangeness, a disturbing element disquieting the spectator/reader who is confronted with a series of elements taken from one's everyday life which, being put one next to each other, provoke, suddenly, an incoherent situation, a source of obscurity and vagueness. Working with text and images, I like to encourage the viewer to oscillate between reading and looking. It is about reusing, recycling and re-contextualizing the over-abundance of images and information we can choose from Time, the various cultural influences of the placed I traveled to and a Babel-like plethora of different languages are recurring aspects of my work.
The artwork is telling stories, influenced by my travels, but also often containing autobiographical elements."
Select Solo Exhibitions
Gallery Kaire-Desine, Vilnius (LT), 2005
Gallery Meno, Cultural Centre Jonava (LT) , 2005
Musée de l’Art Spontané, Brussels (BE), 2008
Gallery 89, London (UK), 2010
Kunstwerkstatt, Magdeburg (GE), 2010 and 2013
Gallery ORT, Birmingham (UK), 2012
Cultural Centre, Minden (GE), 2014
L’Apparition - Acrylic and collage 70 x 70 cmMerz N°2 - Collage 15 x 10 cm
Waiting - Acrylic 70 x 70 cmHeize Elektrisch! - Collage 30 x 21 cm
“I’m inspired by the materials I work with (usually found objects); the touch, feel and intensity of them. The pleasure of working with a beautiful piece of wood, the visual impact of applied color, and the textures of fabrics; how I can imagine the ways to use them is intensely moving.”
Bird in Flight - Collage 20 x 20 in.
“Art using found objects has attracted me since 1965, when I was living in the San Francisco Bay Area, and saw large sculptures by local artists made from detritus on the Bay shore. They were fantastic, noisy, beautiful works with great humor and form - I never have forgotten them. As an art student at Massachusetts College of Art in Boston, Mass. I began studying painting, but later, when I was attending a life drawing group, a sculptor encouraged me to carve directly in wood. This began what has become a deep love for sculpture and, later found object assemblage.
In 1992, when I finally had a permanent studio in the Hudson Valley of New York State, I began combining found objects with the cherry wood carvings I had been doing and continue to do so; adding found rag paper, wire, and paint to the mix.
I have also continued to paint, draw, and create tapestries and, recently I have completed an 18 piece portfolio of collages. I have an extensive exhibition history, including The Proskauer prize from the National Sculpture Society, exhibitions at Brookgreen Gardens, S. Carolina, Biennale Dell Arte Contemporanea, Florence, Italy, where I have been invited again in 2019, as well as many solo, group and invitational exhibitions in the USA. I will also be a featured artist with Artrepreneur, a website assisting artists to further their careers, in a film on PBS worldwide in April 2019.”
Reunion - Found object sculpture 44 x 42 x 44 in.Mantis - Found object sculpture 60 x 16 x 18 in.
I Thought I Stood - Collage 28 x 21.5 in.Goddess of Light Work - Found object sculpture 62 x 23 x 47 in.
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