Chris Bennett was born in London in 1957 and studied at the prestigious Slade School of Fine Art in the early 1980s; he currently lives in Suffolk & his studio is upstairs in his home. As one of Britain's most highly regarded artists, Chris has exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy Summer Show and at the Royal Institute of Oil Painters at the Mall Galleries in London. His current works c
Chris Bennett was born in London in 1957 and studied at the prestigious Slade School of Fine Art in the early 1980s; he currently lives in Suffolk & his studio is upstairs in his home. As one of Britain's most highly regarded artists, Chris has exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy Summer Show and at the Royal Institute of Oil Painters at the Mall Galleries in London. His current works can be seen in prestigious galleries around the UK, America and Worldwide, and the artist also undertakes a range of high-profile commissions.
In the 2000s, Chris released a series of best-selling limited editions, a tribute to 1950s Americana, automobiles and the contemporary ethos of always dressing your best! These prints where widely distributed through UK galleries and further cemented him as one of the UK's most sort after modern-figurative artists.
Although Bennett paints from his mind’s eye and always ensures that the 'raw materials' of his artworks come from collective imagination common to all of us, not just his own. Chris understands that in the past myths and legends, many of them religious, were the inspiration behind the artists’ canvas. Today of course these stories are less familiar, and to some extent they have been replaced with modern alternatives: the car, the aeroplane, the detective, the film star and the city are some of the players in our modern mythological landscape according to Bennett.
The stories around these basic, iconic objects are the expressions of what we love, fear and aspire to and, like the movies, feature heavily the 20th century for most of us. In general Chris's fascinating images are set around the distinctive era of the 1950s, as he believes that this is an effective, as well as aesthetically pleasing way to give the objects in his paintings their most universal and iconic form within our own times.
Some of Chris’s awards and prizes include:
2018 - The Alan Gourley Memorial Award, Royal Institute of Oil Painters (ROI)
2016 - 1st prize in the Stanley Grimm Memorial Award for the painting that received most votes by the visiting public
2011 - The picture the ROI judges would most like to take home with them
2011 - The Cornelissen Award art for the most notable work in the Royal Institute of Oil Painters (ROI) Annual Exhibition
