Trees of London 1 by Polly Bennett
2022
Egg tempera, gold leaf, copper resinate, oak gall ink, pigment on tea-stained watercolour paper
47 x 34cm
Framed
Certificate of Authenticity
Artist Statement
Polly is a landscape artist “portraying the land, with the land” through traditional craftsmanship, using locally sourced materials in a process likened to alchemy. Combining a museological approach to materials with immediate observational responses, she collaborates with, and investigates the surrounding rural environment to re-visualise an experience of her own, and create one for the viewer. The concluding work recollects the explored environment as a memorialised snapshot, producing abstract and deconstructed results.
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Polly is a natural pigment collector and maker. In 2020 she founded her company POLBEN’s Pigment, where she sells sustainable artist’s pigments and inks all created by herself from natural material, as well as holds pigment-making workshops.
Artist Bio
Polly Bennett (b. 1996) graduated from City & Guilds of London Art School in 2018 and in 2019 completed The Worshipful Company of Painter-Stainers Decorative Surfaces Fellowship. Subsequently, she is an Honorary Freeman of The Worshipful Company of Painter Stainers, and also a member of the Wilderness Art Collective, a group of creatives whose work discusses the natural world.
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Polly has received various awards for her artistic achievements, including Clyde & Co Art Award, The Skinners’ Company Stephen Gooden Prize for Engraving, The Fishmongers’ Company Beckwith Scholarship for Sculpture, and The Skinners’ Company Philip Connard Travel Prize.
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She has exhibited internationally in spaces such as Ursa Gallery, Connecticut, USA, Clayhill Arts, Somerset, Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair, London, and The Royal Geographical Society, London.