Exhibition of new paintings by process-based artist Kim Benson at TOA Presents, the gallery's inaugural show in its new and expanded space.
Kim Benson is showing new paintings at TOA Presents in Northeast Minneapolis, and this one is a bit more than just another gallery date. The show opens Thursday, October 22, with an opening reception from 6 to 9 PM, and it's the inaugural exhibition in the gallery's new and expanded space. Benson has worked for years with Rob Sherer, the director and founder of The Orange Advisory and TOA Presents, so it makes sense that she's the one to break in the new room.
Benson is a process-based painter, and that's a good place to start if you're trying to get a feel for her work. Her paintings are physical, dense, and material-rich, with the paint sitting on the surface rather than creating an illusion of deep space. She draws on El Greco, the Baroque, and the Renaissance, and she works with elemental forms—circles, triangles, and squares—that first emerged during a 2022 show she also did at TOA Presents. Her imagery often incorporates hands, books, and collage, and she's worked in diptychs.
She's a familiar name in the local scene. Around 2016, she showed with Hair and Nails in a three-person exhibition called Relief alongside Rachel Collier and Sheila Wagner. Since then, she's exhibited at the Minnesota Museum of American Art, The Auction at MCAD, and the Walker Art Center. This new body of work continues that same physical, material approach she's been developing, and it's the first time you'll see it in this particular space.
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If you want to catch the opening, the reception is Thursday, October 22, from 6 to 9 PM at TOA Presents, 1808 Quincy Street NE in Northeast Minneapolis. The show opens that day and stays up for you to visit afterward.
