Sallie Benton’s new work On Dance gives full-bodied expression to the physical intimacy of the Erotica series in her last show. Fascinated by the passion and frenzy of the multicultural dances of South America — tango, meringue, and samba — Sallie Benton sought new methods and materials to capture their dynamic energy.

There’s a sense of urgency and immediacy in the way Benton uses acrylic on the receptive smooth surfaces of mylar, plastic and board. Benton translates the language of dance: time, space, gesture, rhythm and repetition into the vocabulary of painting. She layers her images, constructing and deconstructing the figures, while leaving a history of the process beneath transparent layers of paint. She juxtaposes drawn and painted figures, crowding them together, while ghost images keep a steady beat across the canvas. Her mark making is frenetic and sensual like her dancers, while her palette suggests their temperature — steamy and hot. This interaction of intense color and fluid gesture create a musical energy replicating the ecstatic quality of dance. It seems as if the painting has become the dance and the artist the dancer. Inserting her self-portrait into the midst of these young dancers, Benton reminds us that desire doesn’t cease with the passage of time.

Sallie Benton earned an MFA from Yale where she studied with William Bailey and John Walker. Her work has been exhibited at The Brooklyn Museum, The Parrish Art Museum and the Newport Harbor Museum among others.

[Click here to see additional work by Sallie Benton]