Invited International Artist
2022 Invited International Artist
Lara Sophie Benjamin is a Cypriot artist born in Nicosia, Cyprus in 1987, where she is currently based. She is a painter who works primarily in oil paints.
Lara draws subject matter from her everyday surroundings and finds significant resonance in ordinary sights and spaces. She is interested in their experiential nature, subjective and selective readings, and the light and the forms created within them.
Windows and doorways are of particular interest, with their liminal associations. They are transitional places, where time and action are suspended, where both the outside and inside are present.
The artist sees the creative process as an intimate reaction to one’s reality based on their perceptions. The outer world and the inner world come together on the canvas through the activity of painting, during which familiar shapes meet with abstract elements.
Lara works intuitively and sees painting as an unending exploration based on formal and aesthetic qualities and on the limitless potential of the material.
The process for her is a constant balancing act, with a continual push and pull of opposing forces taking place on the canvas. The painter is constructing an image, while deconstructing it at the same time, attempting to find the point where all elements hold together, but are at the same time coming apart. During the act of making, the artist oscillates between using instinct and value judgements, therefore existing somewhere between control and loss of control.
Visit Lara's website at www.larasophiebenjamin.com.
Education
MA Arts Practice, certification from University of East Anglia and University of Essex, completed at University Campus Suffolk, UK, 2013 - 2015
Associate Fellowship in Fine Arts, Cyprus College of Art, Cyprus, 2009 - 2012
Foundation Diploma in Art and Design, Camberwell Colege of Arts, University of the Arts, London, UK, 2008 - 2009
Lara's work has been exhibited in Cyprus, the UK, and France, and is part of many private and public collections, including the National Collection of Cyprus and the Central Bank of Cyprus.
Painting is a constant balancing act; a continual push and pull of opposing forces taking place on the canvas: The painter is constructing an image, but deconstructing it at the same time. Ideally, an image must hold together, while at the same time fall apart. Ambiguity in what one is looking at is always engaging - revealing information versus a lack of it. And during the process of making, the act of painting, the artist exists somewhere between control and loss of control - the dichotomy between knowing and not knowing.
