Ella Benami

Stems and Strains

Centrifuge. 92x61 cm. Acrylic, pens & fabric on canvas. 2026

Sometime soon. 80xx60 cm. Acrylic and pens on canvas. 2026

Accelerate. 90x70 cm.Acrylic and pens on Canvas. 2026

Sonar, 80x60 cm. Acrylic and pens on canvas. 2025

Tomorrow ok. 145x102 cm. Acrylic on canvas. 2016

Back then. 120x100 cm. Acrylic and pens on canvas. 2019

By Surprise. 159x60 cm. Acrylic and markers on canvas. 2016

Mother of green. 100x110 cm. Acrylic and pens on canvas, 2014

TEV. 168x130 cm. Acrylic and markers on canvas, 2017

Daughter. 110x100 cm. Acrylic and markers on canvas, 2014

Whim. 60x60 cm. Acrylic and pens on canvas. 2021

Fertile. 104x164 cm. Acrylic and pens on canvas. 2022

This light. 50x50 cm. Acrylic and pens on canvas. 2026

Untitled. 60x50 cm. Acrylic and pens on canvas. 2025

ROGER. 40X40 CM. Acrylic and pens on canvas. 2022

GE. 100x107 cm. Acrylic and pencils on canvas. 2013

Untitled. 145x148 cm. Acrylic on canvas, 2014

Mother of Grey. 196x152 cm. Acrylic on canvas. 2013

OCTO. 100x120 cm. Acrylic and pens on canvas. 2017

GOR. 105x110 cm. Acrylic and pens on canvas. 2017

Throw. 146x100 cm. Acrylic on canvas. 2011

White Lotus. 200xx2010 cm. Acrylic on canvas. 2011

ING. 170x142 cm. Acrylic on canvas, 2011

Commune. 120x130 cm. Acrylic and pens on canvas. 2020

Gleam. 120x100 cm. Acrylic on canvas. 2011

The words stem and strain are used here in a very different context from the biological one, although it sometimes seems that the mental world operates along the same principles as those of the biological and physical world.

In the mental world, a form, thought or idea, begins as a wellspring or the budding of a certain potentiality, and it thus establishes a tendency toward a certain structure or a texture of a specific character. Clusters sharing similar traits and intentions are woven together and spill into each other: emerging from...but also actively creating.

These clusters draw on the materials provided by the environment, but will also affect the environment and transform it, just as vines or ferns do. Assemblages of units of consciousness will develop themselves and their group characteristics in accordance to the conditions in which they thrive. Such wellsprings are of course dependent on the individual who creates them, but also contain independent abilities which are separate and that will enable the creation of an independent reality.

The works cluster around the desire to illustrate the infinite mutual relationships between the visible world and that operating underneath the surface of things, and to demonstrate the dependence between the mental concept and its material realization.