Heather Benjamin

Lives and works in New York, NY

Artist statement

My work investigates womanhood, sexuality, and self-perception. I make paintings, drawings, and artist’s books that explore self-representation and emotional interiority through figuration. The characters in my work encompass a constellation of selves; versions of me filtered through emotional distortion, hovering between self-portraiture and invention. Through these avatars, I explore the tensions of womanhood as I experience it, considering how femininity is constructed, performed, and internalized, and examining vulnerability, desire, and rage without collapsing into confessional realism. My protagonists often confront the viewer directly, resisting passive consumption. I am interested in how sincerity and artifice coexist within these figures, reflecting the tension between lived experience and cultural expectation. Personal history is inseparable from my work. My imagery often emerges from moments of emotional intensity - desire, grief, self-doubt, pleasure - and functions as a way to process and externalize those states. While rooted in my own experience, I am interested in how specificity can create broader points of recognition. I see my figures more as emotional conduits than literal self-portraits, holding contradictions and distortions that reflect how identity is felt. My work is deeply informed by feminist art history, particularly critiques of the male gaze and the historical positioning of women as objects rather than authors of their own image. Artists who...

Artwork