Ann Benton

This specter lives on, partially emerging from its filthy box long enough to create pitiful wars, political corruption, pandemic, environmental collapse, negation of children, women, and those “not like us”. This image is based on a news clipping of a huddle shrouded figure, solitary, abandoned by the roadside and surrounded by the rubble of war. It took on this form as I worked reminding me to ask, is this the creator of death and destruction? Or the victim? Or both?

A native of Birmingham, Alabama, Ann Benton graduated from Auburn University with a B.S. in Education then lived and traveled throughout the United States and abroad for a number of years. After teaching high school, working with environmental organizations and rearing three children, she returned to school at UAB for three years to study art. Building on these life experiences, her work deals with themes of change and renewal, process and ritual, community and collaboration.

She has shown frequently in the Birmingham area, winning awards and purchase prizes from the Bluff Park Art Association, the Alabama Watercolor Society, and the UAB Visual Arts Gallery. Her work has been exhibited at the Birmingham Art Association, the Hoover Public Library, the Alabama Artists Gallery of the Alabama State Council on the Arts, The Book Arts Gallery of The University of Alabama, the Visual Arts Center of Northwest Florida, Panama City, and she held a one-month residency at the Seaside Institute, Seaside Florida. She is a juried member of the Alabama Watercolor Society. Her work is represented in numerous private and public collections.

Space One Eleven Involvement: Founding Member; Book Links 1992; Wraparound Hearts: Reporting from the Outpost 1992; Crossing the Line 1994; Medical Revisions 1994; Windows 1999; Upsouth 1999; Now and Then 2007; Sampler Part I 2011; Barriers 2011