GALE BENNETT (1939-2008) was Founder and Director of ArtStudy Giverny in Giverny, France, a school for artists and photographers celebrating its 14th anniversary in 2009. A native of SW Florida, Bennett studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. The works of this internationally-known artist can be found in collections throughout the US, as well as in Canada, Europe, Japan, and Australia. Gale Bennett said that Nature in all forms provided his primary inspiration. His modern eclectic painting style included references to Abstract Expressionism, Impressionism, Cubism, and even Renaissance art. In 2008 Bennett was honored with the “Lifetime Achievement” award given annually by the “Angels of the Arts”. Until his death in 2008, the artist and his wife, Cello, divided their time between Giverny, France and Southwest Florida.

“GALE BENNETT’S landscape paintings remind us of the essential harmony underlying sensory experience. The poetic composition of his lines and forms corresponds to a larger truth, the human need for connection to the binding energy within nature--a nameless but very real presence that saturates his canvasses….

In Bennett’s paintings visual experience undergoes a kind of alchemy, what Degas called ‘a transformation in which imagination and memory work together.’ The works in this exhibition are evidence of that mysteriously powerful process. Every one is a love story, demonstrating to gallery visitors Bennett’s passion for the beauty of paint on canvas.”