The exhibit is the product of over five years of work and self-reflection. Benson’s inspiration for the pieces came from his journey to salvation and his relationship with his father.
“This is the story about my dad and his influence on my life,” Benson said. “His God that would eventually become my God, his church that would eventually become my church and his mountains that would become my mountains.”
Benson grew up attending a church pastored by his father and hiking the mountains of East Tennessee with his family. One of his favorite places to hike with his father was Big Rock Mountain.
“I was a tiny boy among big boulders,” Benson said. “They created the same wonder in me as church and my dad did.”
As a child, Benson would draw all the time. He began to tie his artmaking practices to things related to God.
After Benson’s father began working with an African American Vacation Bible School in the 1960s, he was run out of the church he was pastoring at the time. This incident hardened Benson’s heart toward the church. He began to have no other involvement with church aside from attending it with his father.
After one semester of college, Benson joined the Navy.
“I learned that hard work is the key to success in everything,” he said.
He went on to attend art school.
“Mountains gave me context for what I was learning in art history classes,” Benson said. “I saw how the structure of mountains inspired cathedrals and churches.”
Benson started making art, aiming to connect himself with his past.
“I was trying to live in a way that brought life to me,” Benson said. “Art became my church and the formal way in which I related to God.”
In graduate school, Benson began large scale sculpting.
“My goal was to have my work move humans to a state of religious sacredness,” Benson said.
Through a series of events, Benson came to know God personally.
“He taught me that I was unable to make sacred space until I allowed him to remake me into sacred space,” Benson said. “… If I don’t make art about God and his truth, then there is no purpose for my work. … Art is being optimistic.”
“I Finally Made It to God” is a collection of nine pieces composed of materials ranging from 24K gold to filmstrips from The Waltons.
Benson’s exhibit will be in the gallery through the end of this week.
“This show is plainly the culmination of his research and struggle to unite or fuse if you will, contemporary ways of thinking about art and his deep, abiding faith in Jesus Christ,” said Chris Nadaskay, art professor. “I have been blessed to participate, if even in just a very small way, in his artistic journey.”
Benson resides in Jackson with his wife of 31 years, Betty, and still hikes often with his children and grandchildren.
