Noel Bensted Exhibition: Chasing Shadows - Monday, June 17 at 6:30 PM at ALIF Riad, 6 Derb Drissi, Batha. Continues daily 4-6 PM through June 26
Artist's Statement:
“This selection of drawings, paintings, and prints documents my relationship with Morocco and in particular Fes over the last four years. I always work from life and often on the spot. My images are of modern people, yet in a classic style in this elegant and private city.
To arrive in this city in December of 2012 seeking light and calm, away from the gloom of London, I was enchanted.
Here was a city and way of life that had echoes stretching back to antiquity through the Arab Golden ages, yet still continuing, notwithstanding the "Ville Nouvelle" and modern, instant communication. Daily patterns are seen that would have been familiar a thousand years ago.
For me, an incurable romantic and a lover of southern light and the great European masters of the 17th century, every street corner had a light source reminiscent of a Caravaggio, an old man resembling a Rembrandt portrait, children looking like the paintings of Murillo, and fabrics and draperies out of Ancient Rome. The courtesy, manners, and welcome I've been given in old Fes are unlike anything I've experienced before. Whilst drawing and painting in the Medina people have often gone out of their way to make me comfortable and welcome. The wonderful sharp light, striking faces, and bleached colours of the ancient city daily enrapture me. I hope my paintings do the city justice.”
For more information please feel free to write to the artist:
noelbensted@gmail.com
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