TY BENNETT
Artist Statement
I am a self taught, full time artist who lives and works in Laguna Woods California. In 2022, my house burned in a terrible fire. I lost a lifetime worth of original artwork. After the fire I decided to make art with minimal art supplies. This in turn inspired me to work under arbitrary rules, this includes arbitrary rules for content and arbitrary rules for media. Three of the rules for content include, the basics of art and communication: 1. Figurative, 2. Abstract, and 3. Paintings with nothing but words and phrases. The arbitrary rules for media include: 1. Only painting in black and white (and any shade in between) 2. All artwork is 16x20 inches, and 3. All paintings are painted on cardboard using acrylic paint. (After the fire I painted my first painting on a piece of cardboard I found using black and white paint I also found.) Each painting is completed in one day.
I call my art installation, “Outsider surrealism”, not because I consider myself an outsider, even though I feel like an outsider, but because I was influenced by their art. I am not able to join the surrealists, because their leader Andre Breton has died, and he was the only person who could allow me into the group. I am however, very much influenced by the work and ideas of the surrealists, especially the idea of psychic automatism (or spontaneity, also sometimes called art brut or raw art.) My paintings are moody, atmospheric, outrageous, philosophical, spontaneous, and sometimes bordering on complete lunacy. When I was a very young boy, I wanted to be a surrealist.
My artwork is very much influenced by literature, movies from around the world, philosophy, psychology, religion, art history, and modern technology. The paintings with words and phrases are often taken from Stoicism, Tolstoy, Epictetus, and many others. Sometimes they are about making art, and making poetry and even making nonsense. I believe that people, now more than ever, need the wisdom from the past as well as meaninglessness. I also believe art should be entertaining, funny, absurd and thought provoking. Paintings of landscapes and portraits are painted not from any photograph or from any outside source, but purely from my imagination. They come from memory, the subconscious, and sometimes from visions and hallucinations.
Some of my other installations, like “Specticalis Sexualis” (or “Paintings with Dicks”) and “Starlight Memories” are also influenced by surrealism and outsider art. They include themes about the morality and immorality around sex, censorship, and black humor. Other works include themes of the passing of time, vintage photography manipulation, and playing around in Photoshop.
Bio
Ty Bennett was born in Long Beach California in 1968. He thinks of his art as, “Outsider Surrealism”. He calls it this because he has been very much influenced by outsider art and surrealism. He paints in three styles: 1. Abstract, 2. Figurative, and 3. Paintings with only words. Then he hangs them all together. Most of his art is painted, not from photographs or from life, but purely from his imagination. You could describe his art as, atmospheric, underground, naive, obsessive, transgressive, and created by spontaneous means. The paintings with words come from Stoicism, Tolstoy, from Ty himself, and many others. He combines these three styles of art to create a new kind of art where things that don’t normally go together are brought together in a creative and original way. He believes great art is made under difficult circumstances, so he works with arbitrary rules: all artwork is 16x20 inches, painted only in black and white, and painted on cardboard and canvas. Each painting is completed in a day. He also uses charcoal, black and white spray paint and black paint pens. He tries to be creative, working under these arbitrary restrictions, thereby making his art very concise, original, and focused. He uses a program that he found, that changes what you write into Italian and French. Ty sometimes works 12 hours a day. Ty started painting when he was in third grade and has not stopped. Ty had his first show in San Diego California at the tohubohu gallery, when he was 19 years old. He did one man shows and group shows there for over ten years and sold lots of art. Ty has also shown his art in Los Angeles for many years, Colorado, and Arizona. Ty Bennett is a self taught, full time, artist, who lives and works in Laguna Woods California.
Resume
One man show “Sarcastic and Contradictory Sarcasm’ Tohubohu gallery 1988 San Diego Ca.
One man show “Paintings on Wood” Tohubohu gallery 1989 San Diego Ca.
One man show Rita Dean gallery 1990 San Diego Ca.
One man show Rita Dean gallery 1991 San Diego Ca.
One man show Rita Dean gallery 1992 San Diego Ca.
One man show Rita Dean gallery 1993 San Diego Ca.
Group show “Erotic Art Show” Rita Dean gallery 1994 San Diego Ca.
One man show Rita Dean gallery 1995 San Diego Ca.
One man show Rita Dean gallery 1996 San Diego Ca.
Group show “Works on Paper” Rita Dean gallery 1997 San Diego Ca.
One man show “Collage, Photograph, and Found Image” Rita Dean gallery 1998 San Diego Ca.
Two Man Show “Ty Bennett and James Healy New Work” gallery 1999 Arizona
One man show “New Paintings” Rita Dean gallery 1999 San Diego Ca.
Group Show Create Fixate 2000 Los Angeles Ca.
Group Show Create Fixate 2001 Los Angeles Ca.
Group Show Create Fixate 2002 Los Angeles Ca.
Group Show Create Fixate 2003 Los Angeles Ca.
Group Show Create Fixate 2004 Los Angeles Ca.
Group Show Create Fixate 2005 Los Angeles Ca.
Group Show Carlsbad library 2006 Carlsbad Ca.
Two Man Show Ducky Waddles “Locals Only” 2007 Encinitas Ca.
Group Show Create Fixate 2008 Los Angeles Ca.
Group Show Create Fixate 2009 Los Angeles Ca.
Three Person Show Louisville Library 2022 Louisville Co.
One Man Show, Louisville Fire Rescue, “Outsider Surrealism” 2023 Louisville Co.