Course Leader and Senior Lecturer, Fine Art


Room: Mel 111

Email: benet.spencer@anglia.ac.uk

Telephone: 0845 196 2798
International: +44 1223 363271 ext 2798

Personal website: www.benetspencer.com

Benet Spencer was born in St Albans in 1969. He studied Fine Art at Herts College of Art and Design, Birmingham Polytechnic and the Royal Academy Schools, graduating in 1995.

Prior to joining Anglia Ruskin University he was Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at Liverpool John Moores University, and taught Visual Studies at London College of Fashion. He is currently external examiner at Hull School of Art and Design and Harrogate College.

His current practice concerns architecture as an emblematic form. Located at the intersection of real and imaginary worlds, his paintings collage found images into fictitious environments. The paintings are layered and evolve through an investigation of the possibilities for both language and image as means of pictorial expression. An eclectic sensibility dominates with the use of computers and the sampling of images integral to the development of the work.

Currently, his practice breaks down into two distinct groups: paintings of singular architectural constructions, and collaged paintings of panoramic vistas. His research interests include the representation of utopia in early modernist painting, the relationship between Eastern and Western Art, and the history of 20th Century architecture.

Since 1994 he has exhibited widely both nationally and internationally, including the solo exhibitions at the Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield; Static Gallery, Liverpool; Shanghai University Gallery; and 2060 Vision Gallery, Antwerp. He has co-curated the group exhibitions 'Tiergarten', 2060 Vision Gallery, Antwerp, and 'Weekending', Globe Gallery Newcastle and touring to RMIT Project Space, Melbourne, 2004-05; and curated 'Fantasy Island', Metropole Galleries, Folkestone, 2006.

He was a prizewinner in the Unipart Reflections of Technology Competition, 1995 and the Mappin Open, 2001, and has been a recipient of awards from Arts Council England, the British Council and the Leverhulme Trust. In 2002 he completed a major seven painting commission for London City Airport. His recent curated exhibitions include 'Reconstructing the Old House', at the Nunnery Gallery, London, and the Ruskin Gallery, Cambridge in 2009, and 'The Thing is the Thing' at the ASC Gallery, London, 2011.

Please click images to enlarge.

 

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