Chris Bennett

Chris Bennett is a Photographer currently living in Detroit, MI. He received his BFA from Indiana University and MFA in Photography from the Hartford Art School’s Limited Residency Photography Program. Bennett founded and was the Director of Newspace Center for Photography in Portland, Oregon from 2002 to 2012 and served as its Gallery Director from 2012 to 2014. He currently runs a fine art printing and reproduction studio, Image Works, in Detroit.

He has recently exhibited his work in Detroit at The Scarab Club and Subjectively Objective Gallery as well as nationally and internationally at The Phoenix Art Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Ft. Wayne Museum of Art (IN), Center for Contemporary Art (Santa Fe, NM), INOVA (Milwaukee, WI), Klompching Gallery (Brooklyn, NY), Circuit Gallery (Toronto) and Kominek Gallery (Berlin).

Selva Oscura

My work investigates issues of place, time and memory by exploring how the environment in which I live and its history guides my views and perceptions. By studying historical aspects of a region and employing philosophical aspects of the sublime and beauty in nature, I hope to inform my internal dialogue and address the ontological aspects of my relationship to the world, specifically the duality between the urban and the rural.

The images submitted are part of a larger series titled Selva Oscura. The phrase Selva Oscura draws its root from Dante’s Inferno. It metaphorically speaks to both those who find themselves on the unfamiliar path and more explicitly the nature of losing one’s way in place and time.

To view more of Chris Bennett’s work please visit his website.