Cover Artist… Andrew Bennett

Artelan, the online gallery founded by Queenscliff’s Lynn Westacott will once again be moving from the cyber realm to the real world, hosting their “Dive into Art” exhibition from 29 November to 11 December at Manly’s Gallery 109. Among the artists on display will be December’s cover creator, Andrew Bennett. 

As our first ever cover artist who’s not from the Northern Beaches, please tell us more about where you’re from?
It’s been a twisted journey, starting in Sydney’s inner west then, via Artarmon then Central Coast’s Chittaway Point and the superbly named Watanobbi, I’ve now settled in Maitland’s Horsehoe Bend, home for the past 5 years, where I live on a good plot of land in a quiet wooden shack with a great studio.

You’ve been a practicing artist since 1990. How did you originally enter the arts world?
I was actually studying Applied Physics at UTS, while wanting to move towards Astronomy, but only getting credit level maths. I really needed distinction level. Then I broke my arm and couldn’t finish the course anyhow. My mentor suggested I go to art school. I was worried about how insecure this field is, which has turned out to be completely true, but my mentor introduced me to the Eddie Glastra Gallery in Paddington. For the following decade I was under Eddie’s expert guidance. Starting off, I was very much an introvert, but I learnt to use my curiosity to overcome my own insecurities and introverted ways. 

What inspired your cover art?
I was always quite petrified of doing the human figure. It had become a phobia, and I got to the point where I had to conquer that. I wanted to do the human figure in such a way that it would best fit the image. That’s where I discovered the free diving movement. It takes the human figure to an area where it doesn’t have gravity, which creates so many interesting poses. But I didn’t just want to paint people underwater. I wanted to create images of when you’re at home, stuck, dreaming of being on holidays. So, I got the figure in, but felt the whole image didn’t balance. I hunted around, thinking about reefs, and why do people want to go on holidays, to even go diving at all? That’s when the turtle came to me. You travel to meet new people, see interesting things. And the home, that has elements of the federation homes from Sydney’s inner west, Haberfield, where I grew up, one of the country’s first heritage suburbs, which funnily enough has a style of home very similar to many in Maitland where I now live. Those 10foot ceilings, I find the proportions of the older homes more human. The artwork comes from all those places.  

Is there a quote or piece of advice which has proven priceless over the years?
Brett Whiteley’s quote: “Painting is a difficult pleasure.” This is a hard thing to do, and hard to do well, hard to make a living from, hard to keep it changing, but all those things are what keeps it so interesting too. There are so many other fields where you can get trapped into doing things a certain way, whereas with the arts, the only real limitation is yourself. The difficulty of this pleasure is what makes art so addictive.