Synopsis of the Artistic Talents of Tantra Bensko
by Alexandre Nodopaka Sept©2005
Ms. Tantra Bensko's attraction to the organic nature and spirituality of human flesh incorporates the emotional and ever evolving duality of human nature.
This passion permeates her oeuvre. She develops a rich iconography fusing the physical and spiritual self particularly in her intense self-portraits.
Tantra Bensko presents a body of artworks loaded with muted color from her brushstroke be it by hand or computer. To make sense of Tantra Bensko’s choice about her casts and settings, one must take into account that for her these are not fictitious scenarios. As with so many of the last century's great naive artists, Tantra finds wisdom in her visions as well as in the spiritual succor of her ceremonial world.
The movements of her brush echo the gestural interactions of theologians, magicians, witches, and ominous protectors with their abiding totemic depictions. It is only through the most delicate expressions of kindness and compassion that her characters avoid appearing gratuitously bizarre or frightening. This is a highly refined achievement on her part. Without assigned explicit interpretations, viewers are presented with a most satisfying and enduring experience a visual image can offer: the inviting realm of the viewer’s evolving
The artist presents her allegorical artwork and self-portraiture championing stunningly the aesthetic beauty of the flesh.
I suggest that Tantra is a modernist romantic with a Tantric philosophical bent. She does it with the help of fluid atmosphere animated by sensuality. The irrepressible vitality of her art seems all the more erotically alive when it is forceful and not simply of familiar nature. Like the philosopher Anaximenes of Miletus, who suggested that all matter arose out of air by condensation and rarefaction I suggest that Tantra’s rose out of her body. Her art is dense and rarefied at once, as though inhaling and exhaling her breath. For Anaximenes moving air or for her to move flesh is the principle of being and of life. Air remains the same through all its transmutations, that is, protean movements, thus the sublime yet earthy airiness of her art. Sometimes it moves swiftly, sometimes slowly. It is like her body, voluptuously brooding or perhaps tossing and turning in sleep during her dreams.
When Alexander the Great, upon pointing to his wounded finger, said, " See the blood of a mortal, not of a god." I say, see Tantra Bensko’s flesh in motion and listen to her incantations.
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You can find more of Tantra Bensko's Artwork here: lucidvision & tantravision & www.mannequinenvy.com/fall2005.htm
