Legs and light run—sometimes literally—through the paintings of British artist Benjamin Senior, his elongated subjects bathed in a hazy glow at all times, appearing stuck halfway between the real and the ethereal. The artist is currently showing at Bruce Haines, Mayfair.
Benjamin Senior’s scenes originate from life. Dog walkers and pairs of friends stroll through streets that have enough of the everyday about them to ground the works alongside the more stylised elements. The overall feeling is one of transience, as visor-wearing, brightly coloured legging-clad subjects mix with the delicate lines of stained-glass lamp shades and elegant shop fronts.
There is also a contradiction of time at play, both the immediate and the long term. Moments appear to be simultaneously still–contrived poses that seem to take their cue more from fashion photography than life–and dynamic–casual hair flicks and dogs jumping excitedly for toys. There is a jump between eras in single paintings also, often of many decades.
The works shown in La Rue are somehow less overtly surreal in feeling than some of the artist’s previous works, which tend to play with form and composition in a way that is more obviously off-key, and the balance here seems more intriguingly struck than ever.
‘La Rue’ is showing at Bruce Haines, Mayfair until 29 July
