Rudi Benétik: Spontaneous Ambience

Rudi Benétik is a man who perceives the world with great sensitivity and in constant motion. He lives and works in the rural environment of the Austrian mountains, at the crossroads of two cultures and languages. Perhaps this is why his works are dynamic and sparkling, like the flow of his thoughts, which winds in two or even three languages at the same time. In the smallest bits of everyday life, such as a date kernel, a dried flower or a piece of antique wallpaper, Benétik is able to discover the inspiration for paintings and sculptures that are imbued with an honest childlike playfulness, an openness of spirit, spicy humorous details and an omnipresent joie de vivre.

Rudi Benétik pours his intimate memoir into each of his works, making a walk through his exhibition an artistic journey through the personally confessional diary entries of the restless traveller “Marco Polo” of our time. The fascinating stories he tells us about the most mundane experiences, or about faraway lands and their people, are enriched with reflections and fragile reflections of the world. The lyrical lightness of Benétik’s works thus seduces the viewer into an ambivalent world of visual sensations, imbued with the subtle sensations of the fan of human emotions, daydreams and memories, with one foot firmly planted here in the physical world, and the other plunged into the depths of the unconscious and the dreamlike.

Curator: Kristina T. Simončič

Foto: Jaka Babnik, Kaja Selko