Gabrielle Fischer-Benitez

In This Hollow Valley (2016)
oil on canvas – 20 x 30 in.

“I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of

the Soul,

The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me,

The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate into a new tongue.”

-Walt Whitman

I believe that there are unimaginable things that can exist. If we step outside of our pre-determined mindsets, everything we see and know is relative. My work focuses heavily on human beings, and the idea of our bodies existing solely as vessels, making the viewer ask, “what happens to those souls when they are separated from their vessel?” I tend to work with an earthy palette to accentuate the ties between human and nature, while my use of the paint is very visceral. My work draws influences from classic literature, pondering questions that have been asked for years upon years.