The walls at the Nelson Public Library are glowing with local scenes painted by popular Nelson artist Lainey Benson, on display until the end of June.
Benson feels she was destined to paint. She comes from an artistic family: her father was a professional musician, and one of her brothers followed in his footsteps. Two other siblings are both accomplished artists, and her mother taught elementary school art. Although Lainey’s career path took her into health care, once she picked up her brushes, things took off.
“As it turned out, the urge to paint was stronger than my career ambitions,” she admits.
“So, after some deliberation and a sense of relief, I returned to my studio. And so for the past few years, I’ve been devoting much of my time to painting and I feel all the richer for it.”
Benson’s paintings have taken on a new and remarkable vibrancy.
“My process in the past couple of years has been to start out on a black background and build a painting up from there,” explains Benson.
“In this way, the picture is defined by black lines. Because the background is so dark, I have to paint several layers to achieve a brilliant effect, hopefully creating a happy feeling in the process. This takes several days before completion. I like to have a few paintings on the go at any given time.”
Paintings on the Library walls include Backyard Rooftops, Skating at Dusk, Looking Down Vernon Street and others, all of them familiar scenes rendered with a reverence for colour and light.
Benson’s work has been a consistent crowd-pleaser. Her work can be seen regularly at Touchstones Nelson, among other venues.
The Nelson Library is pleased to feature Benson’s Lion’s Park as one of their artist bookmarks, available at the circulation desk.