For studio art graduate student Samuel Bennett , art isn’t a passion — it’s an instinct.
Bennett’s studio is blank walls plastered with artwork, floors covered in cutouts for collages and chairs and shelves vanished beneath scraps of magazines and book covers.
As a child, he was constantly drawing and creating and that continued as he grew older.
Bennett came to MSU as an undergraduate student because he had lived in Michigan his whole life and wanted to be near his family while he studied. He was also inspired by the work of MSU’s art professors, such as the paintings of Teresa Dunn . Bennett was so inspired that after his 2012 graduation, he decided to continue his education at MSU with a master’s degree.
“I just wanted more space and time to flesh out some ideas I’ve been working on,” Bennett said.
Bennett currently has an entire room in the Kresge Art Center dedicated to his work. He said it’s terrifying to have his art on display for the public to see.
“It’s like opening up your journal and letting everyone read it, in a way,” Bennett said.
Yet he recognizes the importance of exposing his work.
“I think, as artists, one of our main tools — the most important thing — is to be truthful. If you lie to the viewer, your audience, you’re lying to yourself,” Bennett said.
Bennett recently began work on a new piece, which will embody all the concepts he conveys in his Kresge display. The piece is both a collage in its medium and because it combines the ideas of Bennett’s various artworks.
Art, art history and design professor Adam Brown has Bennett as a student and said Bennett’s ideas are making sense of topics that are relevant today, such as human sexuality and how technology is altering the way we perceive our bodies.
Bennett mainly uses collage, acrylic and oil paint in his artwork, but Brown said he enjoys working with Bennett because he is comfortable with trying different mediums, which is a change a lot of artists won’t undertake.
“I think my favorite part of working with him is his openness to trying new things, new ways of production that are unfamiliar to him and embracing that process,” Brown said.
Bennett’s art is inspired by the world around him. He said he is influenced by other artists, both live and in museums, and aspects of his surrounding environment, from nature to technology.
In the future, Bennett would like to pursue teaching. More importantly, he wants to take the skills and knowledge he learned at MSU and apply them to being an artist who can live off his own work.
Brown said his hope for Bennett is that he is able to produce a body of work and his own distinct style while here at MSU.
“I want him to be able to enter the professional world as an artist with a voice and (to have) confidence in that voice,” Brown said.
