Collection: Force of Nature - Chris Leib, Stuart Amos & Rachel Bess

Beinart Gallery presents Force of Nature, a three person exhibition of new oil paintings, featuring Chris Leib’s bonobos and infantile astronauts, Rachel Bess’ miniature modern day furies and Stuart Amos’ elemental juxtapositions of man and nature.

Opening Reception: 6-9pm Saturday, October 15. Exhibition runs until November 6.

Chris Leib (USA) graduated in anthropology from the University of California Berkeley but soon after landed a job as an illustrator. After some study at the Academy of Art in San Francisco and apprenticing with a portrait painter, he began to work as a full time artist. Featuring casts of astronauts and Bonobo chimps, Leib’s meticulously layered and detailed paintings provide his subjects with a corporeal quality that pull us into their narrative and culture references. Despite frequent dark tones, his subjects are characterised by humour and an exploration of iconic and heroic imagery. Leib has received competitive grants from the George Sugarman Foundation and the San Francisco Arts Commission. Leib’s work has been shown throughout the United States and Europe and can be found in public and private collections around the world.

Stuart Amos (Australia) is a Melbourne-based artist working exclusively in oils. He has had two solo exhibitions as well as several joint exhibitions and was chosen as a semi finalist in the 2015 Doug Moran National Portrait Prize. He is best known for his realistic style with an underlying sense of the surreal; juxtaposing human life with the natural world. He considers his paintings to be a still shot within the larger narrative of human relationships with the environment. Stuart believes that art is subjective, allowing the viewer to bring their own interpretation to the work.

Rachel Bess (USA) is an only child that had a lot of alone time, curiosity, and a preoccupation with death that resulted in a multitude of experiments in art and science. She graduated with honours from the Barrett Honours College at Arizona State University in 2001. Bess intimately sized oil paintings are known for their lifelike realism as well as their thoughtful and sometimes dark subjects that reflect her ability to notice and convey subtle emotion and mood. Her work is shown in many galleries and museums around the world. She is in numerous prestigious collections and publications, has received many accolades, and is still obsessed with death.