Benjamin Senior's Figurative Paintings at Milan Exhibition

An exhibition in Milan showcases British painter Benjamin Senior (born 1982 in Southampton), whose figurative work blends the formal delicacy of Nicolas Poussin with the modernist atmospheres of Moses Levy. Senior's crowded beach scenes, with chaise longues and geometrically patterned umbrellas, evoke human vanity through café society reminiscences and nudity metaphors borrowed from John Cheever's 'The Swimmer'. His approach also recalls Doisneau's Parisian photography. The resulting canvases are suggestive and pervaded by dramatic tension. Senior also explores still life, which tempers worldly anxieties with an almost unreal silence, using chiaroscuro that dominates over the brightness of his 'beach' paintings.