Zoe Benbow is renowned for her dynamic compositions and expressive use of colour. Her latest works continue an ongoing exploration of landscape and atmosphere, offering a striking addition to the seasonal curation.
Based in the heart of bustling East London, Benbow’s studio practice stands in sharp contrast to her subject matter. Her oil paintings invite viewers to step away from the urban environment and into a rich, imagined world shaped by memory and place.
Each piece begins with onsite drawings, slowly developed in the studio through a meticulous, layered painting process. Working in oil allows for both time and depth. In her most recent works, Benbow turns her focus to trees, inspired by the wooded landscapes of Grasmere or trails through Hampstead Heath. Through the repeated exploration of familiar motifs, her canvases become meditations on remembered landscapes — internalised terrains shaped by fleeting impressions and prolonged reflection.
Her repeated brushwork and intricate mark-making recall the visual rhythms of Gustav Klimt’s landscapes, particularly Birch Forest (1903), where the woodland dissolves into shimmering, patterned abstraction. Like Klimt, Benbow constructs her compositions through accumulative gestures that hover between figuration and abstraction. Her practice also shares affinities with David Hockney’s depictions of the Yorkshire countryside — especially in the use of strong colour and compositional layering to immerse the viewer in a felt experience of place. Yet where Hockney captures the immediacy of presence, Benbow's works are filtered through memory, time, and introspection — landscapes as much imagined as observed, as seen in Three Trees Green, 2025.
Zoe Benbow has exhibited widely in the UK and internationally, and her work is held in numerous private and public collections. She holds an MA (RCA) from the Royal College of Art, London, where her thesis was awarded Distinction, and a First Class BA (Hons) from Ravensbourne College of Art and Design.
