A Backwards Bloom

A Backwards Bloom is an exhibition of paintings and drawings by Stephen Benenson and Michael Berryhill.

In this exhibition, both artists build work from many layers of mark-making, attempting to abstract and stretch the familiar. Paintings go through several iterations, each layer informing the last, exposing and mystifying. Color becomes a physical substance, applied thickly and rendered thinly, creating a range of illuminated palettes. Material and shape direct the work, nodding to the joy of discovery through process.

Scraping, wiping, and digging articulate the nameable and the unknown, using paint, charcoal, graphite, and ball point pen as tools to decode and transform images. Rejecting both representation or abstraction, the artists use familiar forms or stories as starting points, sifting through elements to discard or keep.

Cover image • Left: Stephen Benenson, The Hatter’s Table #2, oil and acrylic on board, 40 x 30 inches, 2025-26 | Right: Michael Berryhill, Gloria. Oil on linen, 20 x 16 in, 2024.

Stephen Benenson is a painter who has lived and worked in the greater Portland area for more than two decades. Benenson received his MFA in Painting from the Yale School of Art in 2014, and maintains a studio at the SPACE Studios building. His practice focuses on experimental application of geometry and color, juxtaposed with references to art history and drawing. The artist’s exhibition history includes the Portland Museum of Art Biennial, ICA at Maine College of Art & Design, Platform Project Space (NYC), Durden and Ray (Los Angeles), 1708 Gallery (Richmond), and the Riverside Museum of Art (Riverside, CA), among others. He was a co-founder of the artist-run gallery Able Baker Contemporary (2016-22) in Portland.

Michael Berryhill lives and works in Ellenville, NY. He received his MFA from Columbia University in 2009. Influenced by the emerging neo-Nabis style, Berryhill creates enigmatic paintings that arise from drawings and allude to subjects, often human or animal figures. His work reminds the viewer of the challenge of capturing the process of painting, and the physical and conceptual layering that a surface might contain. He has exhibited extensively in the U.S., including solo exhibitions at Night Gallery (Los Angeles), Kate Werble Gallery (NYC), and Derek Eller Gallery (NYC). Berryhill has been reviewed in Hyperallergic, Art in America, Artforum, and The Brooklyn Rail, among others. Berryhill is an alumnus and former Dean at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.