THE BEAUTIFUL ART & SPIRIT OF SWIMMERS NOW

CAROL BENNETT

Carol Bennett’s underwater paintings show the physical, spiritual and emotional strength and beauty of swimmers, heightened by the beautiful shapes and forms created by the flow of water.

Carol Bennett’s “Women in Water” series comes from a personal place: She swims 7 days a week. While the works are not self- portraits, per se, Bennett is the swimmer in the paintings. She swims more for the spiritual vs the athletic experience.

Spirituality plays a big role in Bennett’s works. Bennett’s figures float in the pools -- appearing to drift, both in body and mind. They are on an endless exploration.

“My swimmers patrol the water’s edge and the ocean’s floor, finding stuff to recycle as art,” Bennett tells us. “The swimmers are my navigation tool: they have lead me to explore fishing nets and knots, abstract fish patterns,  surfers and stand up paddlers... flotsam and jetsam and their ecological impact.”

Presently, in her latest works, Bennett is fixated on just water itself, as it moves, changes, mirrors and opens up a whole new window on the world.

Bennett’s recent exhibition at the Eisenhauer Gallery, entitled “Wet,” showed a range of female swimmers from an underwater perspective. While many swimmers are shown in pools, inspiration comes from the waters of Kauai, where Bennett lives and works. 

Many of the paintings portray the artist herself during her daily swims. All of Bennett’s swimmers have a strong sense of self and place.

Bennett’s husband, Wayne Zebzda, a videographer, often shoots videos of her underwater. She selects stills that capture the fluidity of her movements to turn into paintings.

At the tops of her paintings, we marvel at the abstract reflections on the surface of the water. At the bottoms, we are transfixed with the way the water treats the human forms.

With some, painted on plywood, Bennett follows the grain of the wood to help construct her forms, like the muscles of swimmers and the flow of water. Some of the “Wet” works are reverse glass paintings, adding another level of watery feel.

Read more about Beautiful Pools in A New Floating Beauty Awakens, 10 Most Beautiful Natural Pools In The World, FD Pools, Beautiful Pools as an Artist’s Medium Now, See 10 Most Beautiful Pools in the World Now and MB Pools.

And check out more beautiful things happening now in BN Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact Daily Fix posts.

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IMAGE CREDITS:

1. Image: by Carol Bennett. "Glider."
2. Image: by Carol Bennett. “Kelly.”
3. Image: by Carol Bennett. “Koa.”
4. Image: by Carol Bennett. “Summer White.”
5. Image: by Carol Bennett. “Gabby Study.”
6. Image: by Carol Bennett. “Kelly.”
7. Image: by Carol Bennett. “Archer.”
8. Image: by Carol Bennett. “Light Catch Study.”
9. Image: by Carol Bennett. “Lift.”
10. Image: by Carol Bennett. “Ascend.”
11. Image: by Carol Bennett. “Lagoon.”
12. Image: by BN App - Download now!
13. Image: by Carol Bennett. “Dissolve.”