Career
He received a Diploma of Art from the Victorian College of the Arts in 1974, a Diploma of Education from Melbourne State College in 1976 included studies in Ceramics under Professor Noel John Flood and a Masters of Fine Arts from Monash University in 2005. This medium became the basis of his art practice, Benwell stating "I moved sideways into craft and pottery as a way to find a surface, a form, that I could put my painting onto”. His work marries studio based investigations of the ceramicist with the painterly and sculptural concerns of the contemporary artist.
Foreign the last decade Benwell has been focused on ceramic statues, inspired by an investigation of 18th century figurines and the grandeur of Greco-Roman statuary.
However, Benwell eyes the classical through the present, drawing on images of athletes from newspaper clippings and video stills, coupling high art with low art or low culture. Benwell has exhibited consistently since 1975, holding over 30 solo shows and participating in over 60 group shows.
He exhibits regularly at Niagara Galleries, Melbourne, as well as interstate and overseas. He has exhibited as part of Australian Contemporary at SOFA Art & Design, in Chicago, Australian Glass and Ceramic Art at Galerie Ursula Rosenhauer in Germany and A Secret History of Blue and White, an Asialink exhibition which toured Asia from 2006 to 2009.
From August to November 2013, Heide Museum of Modern Art presented a retrospective of Benwell’s work, surveying his ceramics from 1970 to the present day, entitled Stephen Benwell: Beauty, Anarchy, Desire – A Retrospective.
