Leila Heller Gallery is hosting Nature’s Pulse, a solo exhibition by Chilean artist María José Benvenuto, featuring a collection of her bold abstract paintings inspired by the landscapes of North Head National Park in Manly, Australia, where she lives and works. The show will be open to the public until 4 November 2024.
The exhibited artworks convey a dynamic interplay of contrasting colours, inviting quiet reflection. Each piece emerges from Benvenuto’s subconscious, guided by intuition and memory, interweaving colour, form, and composition to capture the essence of landscapes.
Living in Australia for the past six years has profoundly influenced Benvenuto’s work, infusing it with a sense of freedom and a global perspective. This new series in Dubai resonates with audiences who value cultural diversity and vibrant expression. Inspired by the sweeping views of North Head and Dubai’s panoramic beauty, Benvenuto’s art channels a deep sense of self-connection and translates these feelings into expressive gestures on canvas.
According to Benvenuto, through this collection, she seeks to communicate the unique energy and freedom of the landscapes she takes cues from, in Australia and beyond. She hopes that her work will find a particular resonance in Dubai, a city known for its innovation and creativity, by fostering a shared appreciation for the world’s natural beauty.
About the artist
María José Benvenuto (b. 1990, Santiago, Chile) has resided in North Head, Sydney Harbour National Park (Sydney, Australia) since 2018. In 2014, she earned a BFA from the Catholic University of Chile in Santiago, where she studied visual arts and industrial design.
Benvenuto’s move from the bustling city of Santiago to Sydney’s Northern Beaches allowed her to reconnect with nature in new ways. Using gestural brushstrokes or stains, she concentrates on line and detail to narrate life around her. Her pieces, rendered in acrylics, ink, and watercolours on linen, paper, or cotton, use geometric shapes and vivid colours to captivate the viewer. She also creates abstract sculptures in materials like aluminium, copper, clay, and brass, expanding her artistic exploration of the subconscious, nature, and the energy of colour and movement.
Benvenuto’s work has appeared in multiple exhibitions, such as Just Mad (Madrid, Spain, 2023); Behind the Canvas (The Arx Gallery, London, UK, 2022); Confinis (Paris, France, 2021); Sydney Contemporary Art Fair (.M Contemporary, Sydney, Australia, 2020); and Fragmentos de realidad (solo) (Casas de lo Matta, Santiago, Chile, 2018), to name a few. In 2013, the artist participated in the New Florence Biennale 2013 (Forteza de Bazzo, Italia), where she won the fourth place Prize in the category Works on paper: “Lorenzo il Magnifico”. Her notable projects include creating ceiling panels for the prestigious restaurant La Plume Paris in the Hotel Madame Reve in Paris.
To get more information about Nature’s Pulse, please go to the official web page of the event.
Additionally, you might be interested in attending “…I Kept The Night Vigil…”, a group show which is also in view at Leila Heller Gallery, and The Errantries of Sarah Almehairi and Bernhard Buhmann.
