ruth benzar
Photo: Phoenix, Arizona, 7.2019
Greetings to friends old and new! What a delight to share these works of art with you.
A little bit about me - I grew up in Portland, Oregon, a city with a quirky and artistic spirit. Since I was a child, I have played piano (quite late into the night, well beyond my family’s wishes) & violin, sang, composed music, sketched portraits, and written poetry. I finished my undergraduate training at the University of Portland, where I studied biology and Spanish. My medical training has carted me around the country to Omaha, Phoenix, Seattle, Cleveland, and most recently New York City, and I am currently completing my critical care fellowship training at The Mt. Sinai Hospital.
I have always adored sketching, but fell in love with the richness and tactile dimensions of oil paints during medical school, and more recently with the whimsicality and wispiness of watercolors, and the versatility of digital art.
My influences include Quentin Blake (the lines!); Pauline Baynes (the animals!); Bill Watterson (the fantasy, code-switching, insightful story-telling) and his pupil in the modern era, Jef Mallett; all the classics (notable favorites: Michelangelo and Caravaggio for their anatomy; Monet for color; Modigliani, Matisse, and Van Gogh for stretching and outlining the human body in sharp relief; and a recent addition, Alice Neel the Great for her portrayal of all of the above - portraits, outlines, color, and twinkling humor!). I hope to gather crumbs from their tables and produce my own brioche, as it were.
May you take great joy from your time here, with love,
Ruth