BENJAMIN SPIERS
opening 29.08.2024
dates 29.08.2024 – 03.11.2024
Zuecca Projects is delighted to present Benjamin Spiers‘ new exhibition, featuring works from the last 15 years of his career, including new paintings created during his time in Venice at the Zuecca Art Residency. The exhibition will be held at Squero Castello from 29 August to 3 November 2024.
Spiers’ paintings, where bodies twist and writhe, invite viewers to piece together their own narratives from the intricate puzzles he presents. His subjects are seemingly at ease with their outlandish and grotesque countenances, their bulging necks, twisted limbs, and vibrant eyes beckon the viewer into the deranged magical world where they reside. Spiers’ paintings borrow from a wide array of historical references, incorporating elements of classical sculptures, objects, and figures basking in the glow of flooded light or a blue luminescence reminiscent of science fiction that are probed onto linen or canvas.
Benjamin Spiers, The Dreamer, 2024
Emerging from and receding into shadows, Spiers’ work demonstrates methodical skill and mastery in surrealism, abstraction, and cubism. In Present and Correct, 2024, a face morphs into baroque architectural details similarly in Sad Lion, 2024, a girl wears a mask referencing The Winged Lion of San Marco. Under the influence of Venetian masters Titian and Bellini, Spiers spent six months earlier this year in Venice where his recent works echo the city’s traditions, steeped in grandeur, symbolist allure and mystery. Much like the labyrinthine canals, Rococo etched architecture and the city’s famed masquerade balls, Spiers figures wind and morph into dramatic psychologically twisted portraits.
Spiers studied at Goldsmiths, where he was influenced by the marriage of traditional techniques with a contemporary figurative style. Spiers’ works are pristinely rendered with a painterly prowess rare among his contemporaries, displaying a profound grasp of the history of art evidenced by the many acts of appropriation visible in his work. Spiers has later tutored at City & Guilds of London Art School shaping a new wave of Post-Digital Pop artists.
In 2006 Spiers was selected for the John Moore’s Painting prize at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, and in 2015 was a finalist in the 6th Manifest international painting award, Cincinnati. He has exhibited internationally including solo exhibitions at Saatchi Yates, London, Carl Kostyál, London; James Hyman Fine Art, London; Hales Gallery, London; James Coleman Fine Art, London and the Museum of the Benemerita, Universidad Autonoma de Puebla, Mexico.
BENJAMIN SPIERS
August 29 – November 3, 2024
Wednesday-Sunday | 11AM-6PM | Free entry
Opening: August 29, h. 6-8PM
Squero Castello, Salizada Streta 368, Venice