June 2019: Dave Benz

Dave Benz creates another world with his walnut in paintings. At first glance, the haunting paintings of Benz and Chang appear to be vintage sepia photographs. Upon closer examination, they reveal themselves to be walnut ink paintings rendered by hand on watercolor paper.  The figurative paintings portray mysterious narratives that are largely left to the imagination of the viewer. As an artist and collector of vintage photographs for decades, Benz wondered when his two interests would eventually meet, and was pleased when they finally did. The paintings utilize the image vocabulary of early 20th Century photographs, and they reward a second or third look with details that can be easy to miss.