Announcements of art exhibitions and invitations to their openings lay scattered on a desk, their images vying for attention.  When time is limited, the reproduction of the artist's work on the invite may tempt you to choose one show over another.  One invitation image did more then just coax, it compelled me to attend Greenhill Galleries to view the work of Sydney artist Jason Benjamin.

Benjamin's paintings are a feast for the eyes of any art history lover.  They hearken back to the Renaissance with their rich colours and varnished surfaces, celebrate various reincarnations of Realism as they capture the human condition without distortion of the figure, then suggest Surrealist concepts with their thought provoking titles.  But more than anything, one has to appreciate the excellent drawing and tonal sculpting of the figures that exacerbates the feeling of some psychological undertow pulling us into the Twilight Zone.

There Was Nothing to Find, Was There? is the title of the invitation image that so haunted me I had to view the original.  This large oil on canvas attracts the viewer with its beautifully painted surface that describes, almost photographically, a harshly lit woman in a desolate environment.  We are uncertain if she is determined or deranged, if she will fight for or take flight from this place.  There is a reference to Drysdale in the colour and subject but this is no mythical 'woman in landscape', this is a real person and she's on the edge.

This same woman emerges from the dark by the side of a long empty road in The Night You Came Rising Up (Dust).  Her draped form and the strong linear perspective invite us into a lonely world.  Like all Benjamin's figures, this lady is impeccable drawn and painted.

This artist does not use the human form allegorically, his figures are real people depicted up close and personal, existing on physical and emotional planes.  The cool blue/green of Run and the warm hues of Why is it Taking So Long are two excellent examples of how the artist can take us into ourselves via the portrait of a stranger.

Other works include sky-scapes and isolated roads that go straight or turn into infinity.  These look like excuses for the artist to play with the medium and display his ability to coax mood from colour.  I particularly like the moon breaking through dark clouds in It Blew Away Our Fear and the bush fire colours of the landscapes Yesterday Was So Direct and Brother in Need.  They are beautiful painted and suggested a different interpretation each time I looked at them.

Flowers are another subject well painted by this artist and had I not been so engrossed by the landscape and figure works, I would have appreciated them more.  Exhibited separately, I'm confident the flower subjects would have their own exotic/erotic stories to tell.  I look forward to that experience.