I love the physical material of paint, and believe in its capacity to tease out the substance of my life's experience as I lay it down on the canvas. My intention is that the quality of my understanding of the world, if not its exact contents, might become available to others through these pictures after they leave my hands. Through the subjective act of looking, without being told exactly what to see, the viewer should also come to own the work as much as I do. These are the driving aspirations of my painting, and their achievement is what I admire best in the works of all the other painters, past and present, who move me most profoundly.

 

Christopher Benson, Santa Fe, 2011