Review

Greg Benson's images are handled with a primitivistic freshness and candor that make them appear simple at first. Benson also uses symbols of mobility - boats, planes, cars - segregated from each other. A plane, a figure, an animal, a garden or a tree are isolated on the paper, united only by limpid color washes and by a carefully manipulated perspective which allows us to see each separate form from a different angle of vision. The whole is characterized by a peculiar bird's-eye aerial perspective that is often found in naive or primitive art. Occasionally, an erratically lettered word or phrase (as in Aeroplane) provides the verbal equivalent, crudely drawn, for the pictorial image, emphasizing the image as depicted object rather than representational object. Benson thus stresses the differences between the universal nature of a word describing an object (i.e, aeroplane could be any aeroplane, except for its eccentric spelling) and a specific depiction of

that object. The use of written words indicates that sound plays an important part in Benson's work and he cites the influence of jazz as crucial. He has an interest in literature, but it manifests itself more in terms of literary concerns which have no direct formal impact on the work itself.

"20 Arizona Artists"

Marcia Tucker
Director of the New Museum
New York