Meet the Artist – Joel Benjamin

We’re delighted to feature Joel Benjamin on our front cover this month. Joel is a local artist whose work often draws on the landscapes of Glais, Clydach and Pontardawe. A former Visual Arts and ICT lecturer at Gower College Swansea, he now works as a Virtual Reality Content Creator and Trainer at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, where he explores the relationship between art and immersive technology.

When did you first start painting?

I started painting in 2018. I was always more of a drawing artist but had an admiration for painting. During my last year of university, my family had a house fire which subsequently left our home to be renovated. Mid renovation, we had no flooring in place, which happened to be ideal for starting to paint as there was less risk of mess damaging belongings. I decided to make a single painting, and no matter how frustrating or long it would take, I would restart and restart on the same canvas until it was right. It took me two weeks, but I finally finished the Glais River painting. My first painting. I decided to share it online and it immediately gained over three hundred interactions, which was a lot considering I only had around fifty connections on my personal social media at the time. I then made prints of this artwork and sold all 24 in 1 year, mostly to locals who had a fondness for the river. I initially got these 24 prints expecting they would last me for many years.

What paint do you use? Do you mix it up a bit depending on how you feel or the place you are trying to capture?

I use acrylic paint mostly, though I have tried lots of other mediums. I tend to find on an occasion I will want to try something new but acrylic has always been my baseline medium. It has a sculpting ability to it that allows for a rough technique that takes lots of editing, which suits me. The one of the horse is a charcoal piece, which I also really enjoyed using.

A lot of your artwork is local, is that because of convenience or because there are local places you enjoy painting?

When I first started, my work was based on an appreciation for local spaces but also because of the mutual appreciation it gave locals. It is often nature based, which I think is likely linked to an escapism of modern life. It provides quite a contrast to the brutalism that is seen in modern product and architecture.

What makes a good painting?

I think this is very individual as to me, a good painting is one that I can look at another day and feel proud of the artistry I capture.

Have you come across a place or a scenery which you have really struggled to capture?

I find scenery to be quite easy, its people that are hard to capture. I have done portraiture but it is a much more complex as our minds are very deeply wired to understand faces and expression.

You run an art class in Glais – can anyone learn to paint? Obviously, some people find it easier than others but is it something that we can all get better at?

Those that do not feel capable simply have the wrong perception of what it means to be capable. To have control in art is not seen by everyone as better. Art is a sort of fashion, which follows the taste of those interested. But alongside this, art is an activity that can be appreciated in solitude.

What makes Clydach so special to you?

Glais, Clydach, Pontardawe are areas I spent a lot of time growing up in, so they have always felt like home to me.

Are any of your paintings for sale? And if so, where can people buy them?

Yes, I tend to have a few randomly still available and will update my instagram with the ones not available anymore. I currently work full time, so as I am not a business, I tend to work with people through social media. People reach out and make requests to either commission a painting or to buy one I have already made.

You can see lots of Joels work on his social media pages which can all be found at www.linktr.ee/JoelBenjamin