Trudy Benson (born 1985 in Richmond, Virginia) lives and works in New York. She received her MFA from the Pratt Institute (New York) and BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University (Richmond). Previous solo exhibitions include Miles McEnery Gallery (New York), Loyal (Stockholm), Ceysson & Bénétière (Paris), Ribordy Thetaz (Geneva), Team Bungalow (Los Angeles), Lyles & King (New York), Half Gallery (New York), The Hole (New York) and Dio Horia (Mykonos). Her work is in the collections of Susan and Michael Hort (New York), Beth Rudin DeWoody (New York), Aishti Foundation (Beirut), Saatchi Gallery (London), Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Arts (Peekskill), among others.

Trudy Benson’s painterly layers continuously redefine themselves, redefine their own bounds: Even as they prod at the aesthetics of organisational logics— networks, sequences, grid—they remain in good-humoured flux. But as Benson arranges her sloppy tables and squares, taping lines and masking sections of canvas to create depth, disarray, dizzy dynamism, it is not only the sparring layers that come into focus. Instead, we glimpse the very act of painterly layering: that which establishes a perspectival hierarchy so as to determine the manner in which we interact with (and interpret) images.

Benson’s paintings are often discussed in relation to the ‘digital turn’: the recent moment at which contemporary painters began interacting with digital vocabularies and emerging methods of technological production. In certain ways, the alignment holds: Benson has described her early works as ‘still lives of digital programs’, and her aesthetic surely mimics that of elementary image manipulation programs. In a certain light, the loose interconnectedness of her compositions could also allude to the transitory logic of digital space, while her lither gestural marks are reminiscent of those left by fingers on screens: ghostly smudges that sit somewhere between intent, expression and abstraction of the self.

Solo and Two-Person exhibitions

2023
Plastic Paintings, Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna, Austria
Trudy Benson, Weber Fine Art, Greenwich, CT

2022
4EVA, Trudy Benson + Russell Tyler, Gaa Projects, Cologne, Germany

2021
Waves, SUNNY, New York, NY
Hard Color Heat Wave, Massif Central, Brussels, Belgium
Waves, Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY
/ Z / Z /, Ceysson & Bénétière, Saint-Étienne, France

2020
Join, Loyal, Stockholm, Sweden

2018
Cuts, Paints, Team (bungalow), Los Angeles, CA
Closer Than They Appear, Lyles & King, New York, NY
Infinite Spiral, Dio Horia, Mykonos, Greece

2017
TT52, Lyles & King, New York, NY, with Yann Gerstberger
Garden in Motion, Ceysson & Bénétière, Paris, France
Trudy Benson, Ribordy Contemporary, Geneva, Switzerland

2016
Cosmicomics, Galerie Bernard Ceysson, Luxembourg
Spooky Action at a Distance, Half Gallery, New York, NY

2015
Shapes of Things, Lisa Cooley, New York, NY
Retrospective Gallery, Hudson, NY, with Russell Tyler
East Hampton Shed, East Hampton, New York, with Russell Tyler

2013
PAINT, Horton Gallery, New York, NY

2011
Actual/Virtual, Mike Weiss Gallery, New York, NY

2010
Space Jam, Freight + Volume, New York, NY

Group exhibitions

2023
I AM THE PASSENGER (Organized by Trudy Benson, Paola Oxoa, and Russell Tyler), Beacon, NY

2022
Why I Make Art (curated by Brian Alfred), Miles McEnery Gallery

2021
Group Exhibition, Weber Fine Art, Greenwich, CT
Guy Yanai at 525 West 22nd Street, Trudy Benson at 511 West 22nd Street, and Emily Eveleth at 520 West 21st Street, Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY
Unearthed By JC, Mindy Solomon Gallery, Miami, LA
Her Dark Materials (curated by Philippa Adams), Eye of the Huntress, London, United Kingdom
Light (curated by Rico Gatson), Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY
Phase 1, The Hole, East Hampton, NY
Path of the Storm, SUNNY NY, New York, NY
Group Show, RIBORDY THETAZ, Geneva, Switzerland

2020
Accrochage, RIBORDY THETAZ, Geneva, Switzerland
True Lines, Over the Influence, Los Angeles, CA
The Hundredth Exhibition, Loyal, Stockholm, Sweden

2019
Decoy, Fine Arts Center Gallery, University of Arkansas, curated by Marc Mitchell
New Edition: Print from the Past, Present, and Future at Pratt, curated by Caitlin Riordan and Grayson Cox, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY
Rise, RIBORDY THETAZ, Geneva, Switzerland
Le ciel, l’eau, les dauphins, la vierge, les flics, le sang des nobles, l’ONU, l’Europe, les casques bleus, Facebook,
Twitter; Forde, Geneva, Switzerland

2018
MOONDOG, East Hampton Shed, East Hampton, NY
10 Years in Luxembourg, Ceysson & Bénétière, Wandhaff, Luxembourg
Set Adrift on Memory Bliss, Pablo’s Birthday, New York, NY
Group Exhibition, Richard Heller Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2017
Come as You Are, Galerie Antoine Ertaskiran, Montreal, CA
Post Analog Painting II, The Hole, New York, NY
Pro Forma: Context and Meaning in Abstraction, Work Release Gallery, Norfolk, VA, curated by Vittorio Colaizzi
Unobstructed Views, Hawkins Ferry House, Grosse Point Shores, MI

2016
Bodacioussss, Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, CO
Re-Planetizer, Regina Rex, NY, curated by The Pit
Splotch, Sperone Westwater, New York, NY
The City & The City, Denny Gallery, New York, NY
Non Figuration - un regain d’Intérêt?, Centre d’art, Meymac, France
9999, The Fireplace Project, East Hampton, NY
Image Tech: Making Pictures in a Post-Digital Age, curated by Mauro Zamora, The Art Gallery at the College of New Jersey, Ewing, NJ

2015
PaintersNYC, Páramo, Guadalajara, MX; and Museo de los Pintores Oaxaqueños, Oaxaca, MX
Feed the Meter, Galerie Bernard Ceysson, Wandhaff, Luxembourg
Let’s Go Away for Awhile, One Mile Gallery, Kingston, NY (curated by Erik den Breejen and Maria Calandra)
Swingers WKND, Brooklyn, NY (curated by Tribble & Mancenido)
Anti-Fair, Harper’s Books popup at the Carlyle Hotel, New York
Post-Analog Painting, The Hole, New York, NY

2014
Go With the Flow, The Hole, New York, NY
Sunscreen, James Graham & Sons, New York, NY
Abstract America Today, Saatchi Gallery, London, UK
OK Great Thanks This Is So Ridiculous, ACME, LA, CA; and DCKT, New York, NY
This One’s Optimistic, Pincushion, New Britain Museum of Art, New Britain, CT
Material Images, Johannes Vogt Gallery, New York, NY
The Last Brucennial, Bruce High Quality Foundation, New York, NY

2013
Merge Visible, Horton Gallery, New York, NY
SPLAZITCH, Side Effects Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
Paint On, Paint Off, Halsey McKay Gallery, East Hampton, NY
Windows, Denny Gallery, New York, NY
XSTRACTION, The Hole, New York, NY
Paradox Maintenance Technicians, Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA

2012
Aggro Crag, Bosi Contemporary, New York, NY
Where My Cones At?, curated by Ryan Travis Christian, Double Break, San Diego, CA
Pratt Alumni Painters, Pratt Manhattan Gallery, New York, NY
Spindles, curated by Adam Mignanelli, Kinfolk Studios, Brooklyn, NY
WET WET, curated by the BLAAAHg, Brooklyn, NY
Eileen S. Kaminsky Family Foundation New Acquisitions and Prints, Mana Contemporary, Jersey City, NJ
Idealizing the Imaginary: Illusion and Invention in Contemporary Painting, Oakland University Art Gallery, Rochester, MI

2010
Behind the Green Door, DNA Gallery, Provincetown, MA
Pratt MFA Exhibition, Pratt Manhattan Gallery, New York, NY

2009
Fervor, Edward Thorp Gallery, New York, NY
Down Below It’s Chaos, ArtJail, New York, NY
A Piece, LABA Artists’ Space at the 14th Street Y, New York, NY

2008
Refinement, Aswoon Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
Studio 23 Presents LOL the CommandP BFF 4EVA Portfolio, Transmission Gallery, Richmond, VA
Transmission Introduces Studio 23, Transmission Gallery, Richmond, VA

2007
24/7 Fire in the Hole, Plant Zero Art Center, Richmond, VA

Collections

Aishti Foundation, Beirut, Lebanon
Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection, New York, NY
Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Arts, Peekskill, NY
Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME
Saatchi Gallery, London, United Kingdom
Susan and Michael Hort Collection, New York, NY