Working with common themes such as transition, aging, isolation, and loss, I am interested in the fragility of relationships and the awkwardness of a group of people trying to coexist and relate to one another. To that end, I create miniature 3D models to serve as evolving still lifes from which I paint detailed narrative paintings. Currently, I am creating a series from a lakefront diorama. The relentless fecundity of nature depicted against a painted sky backdrop is my staging ground for evolving fictions that are reflected in a lake of resin.

The paintings are glimpses of a scene or fragments of a narrative. Similar to a memory, they are fictional constructions of significant moments. I am interested in storytelling over time through repeated depictions of the same house or car or person, seasonal changes, and shifting vantage points. Like the disturbing difficulty of trying to put rolls of film in order several years after the pictures have been taken, I hope the collective images suggest a known past that is just beyond reach. One of my challenges is to invite the viewer to form his or her own connection and narrative so that he may empathize with the occupants’ seemingly mundane existence.

Born in Maine, Amy Bennett lives in Brooklyn, New York. The first group of the lakefront series, “At the Lake” was exhibited in January 2009 at Richard Heller Gallery in Los Angeles. The final pieces were shown in November 2009 at Tomio Koyama Gallery in Tokyo. Other exhibitions have included “Neighbors” (Richard Heller Gallery, Los Angeles, 2007), “Buried” (Galleri Magnus Karlsson, Stockholm, Sweden, 2007), and “Size Matters: XS” (Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, Peekskill, New York, 2007). Awards include a New York Foundation for the Arts Grant as well as a studio space in Brooklyn’s Smack Mellon Studio Program.