This special evening turned out to be a reunion of sorts for her dearest family and close friends, and no one could have been more pleased than Jana Benitez herself. Her brother Albee hosted the reception in her honor in his beautiful home in North Forbes, this when Jane took time out from her commitments in Hong Kong where her solo exhibition, Wild Silence, is ongoing until today, the 29th of October, at the Pearl Lam Galleries.
Jana, as many of us know, comes from a family of artists and art movers. Most notable, of course, was the late Senator Helena Benitez, the doyen of the Bayanihan, our country’s original top folk dance company. But then, there are some surprises in the family too, as her own father, the late Jolly who was undersecretary of the Ministry of Human Settlements, was himself a member of the Bayanihan.
Jana’s mother, Joan de Asis, has, for the longest time, a name to reckon with, to use the expression, in international finance.
Born and raised in New York City as Filipina as a Filipina can be, Jana, not surprisingly equally brilliant and talented as her family, Jana Benitez, Jana is based in her place of birth, as well as mid-coast USA and her dear Manila. She holds an MFA from Boston University and a BFA from Brown University (magna cum laude). Her collectors, both institutions and patrons, come from Southeast Asia, Europe, and the United States. Jana’s works are included in major private and public collections, such as Crystal Bridges Museum in Arkansas, USA; the Pataka Museum in New Zealand; and Ayala Museum, Museo Pambata, St. Luke’s Hospital, and the Philippine Women’s University in the Philippines.
Spotlight, the online interview show of the Daily Tribune, had Jana for a guest a few moons ago, and I had the joy of interviewing.
I am sharing with you excerpts from a Gallery Lam interview with Jana where she shares her views on art, how she creates, and her artistic growth from her first exhibition at the Ayala Museum as a 12-year old child prodity.
Prints of Jana’s paintings on display at the Benitez residence.
Daily Tribune (DT): How would you describe your overall style as an artist?
Jana Benitez (JA): I’m not sure that style can be recognized from the inside. It is typically from the outside that style can be noted. I think on the inside, what we feel are magnetic pulls, forces drawing us towards certain recurring avenues of inquiry and exploration, which then lead to certain constants in the work.
One constant is that I’ve been insatiably curious about the human experience at a basic and fundamental level, and my investigations have been deeply rooted in the body. Another constant is the feeling of yearning that to me pulses through many different-looking paintings. I am interested in the simultaneity of, on the one hand, wholeness, rootedness, and gratitude and, on the other hand, an absolute intensity of desire, love, and even devotion (almost to the point of worshiping divinity). I like to think of this as life yearning for itself through us. The energy that makes the flowers blossom.
The ancient weft that weaves through all things. Whatever force inspires plants to grow through cracks in the cement. The audacity and courage of it all. That kind of love.
DT: What themes are you most often drawn to?
JB: Intuition, Home, Third space, Chaos, Vitality and Abundance.
DT: What do you love most about what you do?
JB: Oh thank you for asking this. I love painting so much, so so much… hmmm let me think… What do I love about painting? I love how good it feels. I love how hard it is. I love how it can’t be controlled. I love that it demands surrender. It demands humility. And also AWE. Painting is fueled by wonder. It asks us to come up against something greater than ourselves that doesn’t belong to us. It’s literally just like hiking up a mountain and getting on your knees and kissing the ground.
That’s why it’s always so funny to me when people think “oh look at this beautiful flat rectangular thing” or “gosh so-and-so made this really great painting” because, ultimately, all the painters know, all the artists know, we don’t make this shit. We don’t make this shit. We have the tremendous, humbling, insane privilege of just showing up and having it come through us. And that’s the truth of the matter. And it’s not special.
We’re not special. Every maker knows this place. You can’t make art without knowing this place. And it is that fact that is special, that’s what is sacred…
DT: You started your career as an artist quite early, with your first exhibition at just 14 years old. How have your style and themes changed since you first began as an artist? What has changed and what has stayed the same?
JB: I was 12 when I had my first solo show at Ayala Museum in Manila. At age 14, I had my first solo show in NYC at Walter Wickiser Gallery. At that time, I was mostly drawing faces. So from the very beginning, I was already interested in exploring the full spectrum of feeling and expressing subtle nuances between different feelings. After undergrad (at Brown University), I was painting in Brooklyn and shifting my focus on the figure from a purely visual level of appearance towards a more energetic and sensorial orientation.
In 2009 I had shows in Berlin and Manila of portraits and gestural abstract investigations of energy moving through the human body. In 2011, I had an exhibition in Singapore called Incarnate, which contemplated the ways in which our body holds memory. It is amazing to witness my current work return to similar themes, coming full circle. While I have explored different directions this past decade (including portraiture, plein air landscape, immersive installations, archival imagery based on Filipino-American history, etc etc), I have remained committed to the investigations of embodiment that began with those Berlin, Singapore and Manila shows a decade ago and have now evolved into this Wild Silence exhibition at Pearl Lam Galleries Hong Kong in 2022.
One thing that has changed is now I am less concerned about how a painting looks and more mindful of the energetic vibration that comes through the somatic transmission of the work.