Lynda Benglis

Lyda Benglis was born in 1941 on October 25^th in Lake Charles, Louisiana. She received a BFA from Newcomb College in 1964, and then she moved to New York to pursue her dream as a contemporary artist. In 1969 she began working with polyurethane foam. She arrived in the New York art scene in the late sixties with her poured latex and foam works. Belgis is known for her exploration of metaphorical, sexual and biomorphic shapes. She is deeply concerned with the physicality of form, and is inspired by how it will affect the viewer. Benglis uses a wide range of materials to render dynamic impressions of mass and surface. Her work allows soft to become hard, hard to become soft and freezes gestures of the human body. In Benglis' work, the act of artistic creation is embedded in presentation of process and the movement of materials. While this can be seen as a more formalistic pursuit, within Benglis' work it becomes an act of transformation, a sort of alchemical presentation in which material presence, with a life of its own, combines with artistic manipulation as an extension of the body. Throughout Benglis’s career, she has managed to balance controversy with critical interest, abstraction with content, and gesture with mass. She creates diverse bodies of work known for their formal and innovative qualities. Benglis is influenced by can the work of many younger artists working today; examples include the plastic “blobs” of Roxy Paine, and the sexually suggestive props of Matthew Barney. Benglis is currently working in New York and Santa Fe.
I enjoyed Benglis's sculptures because of their metallic color. The interesting design of each one allows the viewer to depict the figure, like the first one called "Ghost Dance," according to both the shape and name of the sculpture.

Ghost Dance

 

The Wave

 

Centarus

   

Bravo

Thunder Bird

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