Visit with Christine Benson, painter of dreams

Photo caption: Christine Benson, painter of dreams… (Photo Y.D.)

To be the holder of a diploma of grand finalist and the vote of the jury, at the 11th International Grand Prix of the Côte d’Azur, is an incontestable reference.

It is true that the talent of Christine Benson, an English painter, who has lived in Fayence for five years, is just as undeniable.

(For many years she was a drawing teacher, illustrator in a major British daily newspaper, the Evening Standard, and lecturer in several European cities.
It was during a visit to friends in Seillans that she fell in love with the region in general and Fayence in particular, where she decided to settle.)

Her paintings have a symbolic aura and a subtle poetry which charms the visitor. Soft and diaphanous colors, rounded curves, faces imbued with an exquisite gentleness, nothing to offend the eye which pauses at the expression of faces whose feelings convey a kind of magic. So great is the charm it is difficult to turn the eye away.

Christine Benson avows that it is at night, during dreams that inspiration comes to her, practicing meditation her mind crosses frontiers where reality and the imaginary blend. The results transposed onto the artist’s canvases are in any case remarkable.

(Christine Benson’s works have been exhibited in South Africa, Thailand, London, New York. Among the best-known portraits she produced are those of Professor Barnard and Governor Kirk of the State of Florida.)

In about twenty minutes she is capable of realising your portrait, in crayon; the cards showing the streets of Fayence are another facet of a talent that we were delighted to discover.

Y.D.