MARTIN BENNETT

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"Static Image Painting / 2nd Variation / Blue / Finley Bridge"

Martin Bennett, "Static Image Painting / 2nd Variation / Blue / Finley Bridge," 2002, 36" x 30".

MARTIN BENNETT

By Jill Sawyer

Though he was born in England in 1970, Martin Bennett grew up in Medicine Hat, Alberta, before going on to the painting program at the Alberta College of Art & Design in Calgary. From there, his work was immediately recognized, and he secured the almost-unheard-of distinction of landing two solo shows at TrépanierBaer gallery the year after he graduated. During the past few years, Bennett has been perfecting a technique in urban landscape that combines photography, photocopying and painting. The series, called Static Image Paintings, involves layered images of metropolitan parks that have been captured on film, then pressed flat and overlaid on canvas with monochromatic touches of colour. The pieces look like enlarged black and white photocopies, but their depth and perspective is deceiving. For the past six years Bennett has been travelling and living in Europe, and now divides his time between Toronto and London, England, but he’s still represented in Calgary by TrépanierBaer. See his work there in a show running January 22 to February 14, 2004.