Tony Benn – Choirpractice

Every carpet in Wetherspoons is individually designed and references some local part of knowledge. They are made by Axminster, carpet makers to royalty and aristocracy. They are sometimes hideous and sometimes beguiling enough to wonder if you are not already drunk. Benn makes paintings that are a car crash of two parts of our culture, or if you prefer a hybrid bolt together of the highs and lows of our culture. The Wetherspoons carpets and stately home (National Trust) flock wallpaper. Recalling the infamous claim of Greenberg (Avant-Garde and Kitsch, 1939) that we live in a culture that can contain these two diametrically opposed objects and how that helps us explain ourselves to ourselves (self-understanding) with these cultural objects. Often a sweeping force of rauch, (frenzy, Nietzsche) a swipe of thick viscous paint, brings these elements into close contact with each other.
Studied BA (Hons) Fine Art. at St Martins School of Art and Design. Lives in London Tony Benn Choirpractice, 2025, acrylic on canvas, 25×25 cm £540