BARBARA BENISH

"Barbara Benish's;s work addresses the dual relationships and transformations between

nature and culture, religion and reason and imagination. Since 1989 Benish has divided

her time between Los Angeles and Prague, and her art reflects this mixing of cultures.

One of Benish's primary interests is the fields of anthropology and, particularly, the

relationships between contemporary Western society and other cultures. She has

studied the rituals, mythologies, and histories of Native America and traditional

Polynesia, as well as our own Catholic, Christian, and Jewish sub-cultures. Her work

explores art history, particularly Northern European Gothic art-as well as the

dichotomies between art and craft, and the decorative and the domestic."

Rebecca McGrew, curator, Pomona College Museum of Art

(now the Benton Museum of Art, Pomona College)