Hailing from Rhode Island, Christopher W. Benson and Russell Horton both found beauty in the landscapes of the American Southwest. After leaving their home state, each artist followed a different path - Benson working as a builder and cabinetmaker and Horton in painting school - before finding their niche.
Now, each artist holds a list of awards and exhibits both nationwide and abroad.
Benson, a two-time Pollock-Krasner Foundation’s painting fellowship recipient, said his work “charts an arc from portraiture to figurative interiors, architectural scenes, landscapes and seascapes. For 20 years, I have also painted abstractly. Yet through all these explorative phases, I have single-mindedly honed my skill in the handling of oil paint itself; a tactile aesthetic instrument which I play with often gestural brushwork, distilled into formally complex and richly colored contemporary scenes.”
Through his pieces on display at the Museum of the Southwest, guests will be able to see the hidden beauty found in the space around us. Reflections of New Mexico blend elegantly into the West Texas vacancy while bright colors showcase more than red dirt.
As for Horton, he likes to showcase the impact of human presence. “Between the architecture of pump jacks, holding tanks, water towers and other agricultural and industrial structures which gain exaggerated prominence in the stark openness of my compositions, I exchange the nostalgic rhetorical tradition of the pristine, unspoiled American landscape for more acute contemporary portrayals of a workaday world that, viewed out a car window, flashes quickly by as we travel to more pressing appointments and locales,” Horton said.
In his portion of the exhibit, guests will find said contrast to be both captivating and startling. The use of bright, figurative colors allows Horton to provide dimension beyond the physical stature.
The Benson-Horton display will run through Feb. 4. The museum is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday. It is located at 1705 W. Missouri Ave.
