Artwork by Carolee Bennett

I am a practicing artist with an interest in the conflict between human infrastructure and the natural world – and the landscapes and lifestyles at risk. To capture love of place, loss of place, or both,  I work in an expressive style that emphasizes distortion,  strangeness, and storytelling. My body of work includes acrylic on canvas and collage.

Follow my anxious art journey on Instagram at @CaroleeBennett_art.

CURRENT

“Canary #1,” Asterales: A Journal of Arts and Letters, Issue #3, July 2025

PAST

“December Afternoon Snow on Ogunquit  Beach” (accompanied by its sketchbook origins), Sketchbooks: Working  Out Ideas (Group Exhibition), The Sketchbook Gallery at Jane Street Art Center, Saugerties, NY, July 5 – August 2, 2025

“Canary #1,” FENCE Member Show, The Arts Center of the Capital Region, Troy, NY, June 18 – July 31, 2025

When I became obsessed with power lines in the fall of 2024, there  were two options: write myself off as more than a bit odd or figure out  what the heck it was about. I chose both.

While perpetually taking photographs of the power grid – and worrying  slightly that I may wind up on some kind of government watch list – I  began to explore the presence of thick, looping wires, wooden utility  poles, and steel transmission towers in my sketchbook. I also examined  why they’d captured my attention and discovered a fascination with our  tolerance for how they interrupt the landscape and our reliance on how  they connect us. (They also divide, of course.) As such, power lines are  connected to broader themes of fragmentation, boundaries, and  attachment.

In this investigation, I re-discovered an interest in the  juxtaposition of and conflict between human infrastructure and the  natural world, the ways they literally bump against one another, and  what this tension places at risk.

As a poet, I’ve spent years chewing on the clash between meeting our  needs while foolishly and stubbornly jeopardizing our own existence.  (I’m looking at you, Capitalism and Consumerism). The new power lines  obsession represented a fresh metaphor for this – one I decided to  consider in my visual art. Attention to the constant presence of the  power grid expanded to other places where human infrastructure bumps  against natural elements, forces that will ultimately disappear or take  us out. As I get started, I’m focused on domestic life (food, for  example) and the locations most personal to me, like the coast  (specifically Southern Maine’s beaches) and wilderness (New York’s  Adirondacks, in particular).

I’m compelled by the urgency of capturing both love of place and loss of place.

Early work on love of place avoids pristine scenes, showing  instead the edges where nature and infrastructure (homes, hotels, docks,  parking lots, bridges, and more) overlap. In these paintings, like  “December Afternoon Snow on Ogunquit Beach, 2024,” human structures and  natural beauty co-exist even as they invite our questions.

Early work on loss of place offers further inspection and  even speculation, answering the question of what happens when our impact  is irretractable, when the damage we’ve done threatens our lifestyle  and our lives. These paintings are storytellers. One still life, “Canary  #1,” for example, is set in an uncertain future. It depicts a table  topped with breakfast food and a gas mask. In the background, a canary  looks out a window at toxic clouds and rain.

I’m currently sketching and painting in an expressive style that  permits strangeness and distortion. I’m attempting to use exaggeration  and simplicity to focus the eye on inquiry – a tilted head, yes, but  also curiosity about our fate and whether or not we have the will to  alter it.