Husk Bennett BA (Hons) Fine Art and Art History 2020
I'm from Belfast. My practice is concerned with ideas of contemporary media, celebrity status and my experiences of living life in England as a person from Belfast and always, or at least often, feeling kind of misplaced, or lesser. Before lockdown my practice was largely made up of paintings and installations, investigating the absurdity of British identity and trying to formulate my own understanding of these things. Since moving back to Belfast I've been experimenting with video art as a way to communicate the ideas and activities which have become so commonplace over the last few months. Humour is really important to me within my work; just because something is funny doesn't mean that it is a joke.
My ideas are still pretty much the same, but painting seems less relevant as a form of communication and I am currently interested in investigating these shifts by performing through my devices; the confines of my phone or laptop become the picture plane in a way, and through this I am trying to express the "MeNtAlItY oF ThE hIvE mInD" during lockdown or something like that.
The shift in my practice in terms of my output, as well as my working environments, has obviously changed hugely. From making work largely focused on painting, working in the studio spaces and being within the art school for 10+ hours a day, to working at home, in a domestic setting where I am basically 24 hours every day, obviously not always creating, but always thinking and conceptualising new projects. This shift in one sense, is positive; I’ve always felt, or perhaps known that art school is a privilege for us, the studio spaces are temporary, and I’ve always thought that being able to create art and respond to scenarios outside of this setting would be much more of a challenge; in many ways having to leave the studio has merely set up this year's courses to work in ways much more realistic and probable for the life of the artist post-graduation.
My name is Husk Bennett, my phone number is 07740303332.
