Amanda Benefiel

Bio:

Amanda Benefiel grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan, a Reagan baby. Scraping ice off the minivan in winters, catching lightning bugs in the summers. Catholic school, crumbling Victorian houses, dozens of kids in rotating rock bands, cigarettes in the cemetery. She received a BFA from Pratt Institute in New York and a MFA from Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, CA. Her work explores painting in relationship to movement, color, materiality and the emotions they invoke. Often utilizing an industrial shoe repair machine, the paintings are cut and sewn to build the surface in a way that invites the viewer into the artist’s process. Time and its passing are central themes in the work, as are: spirituality, birth, and grief. Amanda recently completed a residency with Ox-bow School of Art and is finishing a book 108 Flowers for a Shit Divorce. She lives and works in Los Angeles.