Shantideva Meditation Center

Oil on canvas, 12" x 24"

Valued at $600.00

All proceeds from the sale of this item will be donated to Michael Benjamin

 

Michael F. Benjamin’s work titled “Splash” was done after a few year hiatus from painting in 2010 while he was living in Washington D.C. The years of bottled up artistic energy came out onto this canvas in a “Splash” of colors as if it were the palette from which he would create his future works.

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About Michael Benjamin:

Michael Benjamin is from New York City and has been painting since he was 6 years old. He was trained classically from age 6 to age 15, the last few of those

years studying under the Hungarian Kalman Czimbalmos. In that time Michael focused on landscapes, seascapes and lighthouses occasionally adding in more stylistically abstract features. He won an award at 10 years old for one of his stylistically abstract lighthouse paintings. More recently Michael has dabbled more heavily in both abstract and impressionistic style painting, sometimes creating unique mixes of both styles, while working under the supervision of Artist John Blee at The Art League in Alexandra, Virginia. Upon returning to New York City in 2012 he continued painting for a short time at The Art Students League of New York under the supervision of artist Charles Hinman.

 

Michael returned to New York to be closer to his family after having fought off cancer, but then was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease called Scleroderma. Scleroderma is an autoimmune connective tissue disease where skin and internal organs are inundated with scar tissue as the body’s immune system attacks its own tissues. The artist Paul Klee also suffered from this debilitating disease and there are actually studies on how the disease affected Klee’s later work. Michael currently has a considerable number of health issues

caused by the disease and is not painting at this time.

 

Michael has generally done his painting as a hobby but he has shown his work in a gallery in Washington D.C. in 2011. Professionally, before his illness he received a degree in Physics from Hunter College of the City University of New York, doing research in Astrophysics and Material Science and spent some time as an intern then as a research assistant in the Solar Physics Department at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. He then worked as an engineer working on various satellite systems.

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To see more of Michael’s artwork go here:

http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/michael-benjamin.html

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For more information about Scleroderma, Michael maintains a website with information and news about the disease at http://sclerodermainfo.com/

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