THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
                 Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, June 2, 1994                    TAG: 9406010190 
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS                     PAGE: 14    EDITION: FINAL  
SOURCE: BY MARK DuROSE, CORRESPONDENT 
DATELINE: 940602                                 LENGTH: Medium 

LIKE HIS MOTHER, YOUNG PAINTER'S HEART LEADS HIM TO ART

Benson's mother, Beth, owns Art Works, a Norfolk art gallery that specializes in the works of local artists. Benson, a graduating senior at Maury High School, has suddenly emerged as a promising painter.

{REST} Already his work is winning awards. One of his acrylic paintings recently won first-place honors in a student art show at the Hermitage Foundation Museum.

And after only a year of applying a brush to a canvas, two of his paintings were included in the Student Gallery display at the Chrysler Museum. The display opened in April and is designed to be a showcase for the work of a select handful of talented artists from area high schools. Only 40 applicants were chosen from a field of about 1,200.

Ed Carson, one of the two judges, was impressed by Benson's work: a large self-portrait entitled ``Exposed,'' which was Benson's first painting, and the smaller, more colorful, ``Bleak Mark Norfolk Landscape.''

``I remember it very well, and I felt it was very strong work,'' said Carson. ``I saw a lot of pieces, and his stood out.''

But Benson's beginnings as a painter were not as auspicious. His mother recalls an incident when he was 3. At the time, the single mother took her son to the gallery every day. ``He drew something while I was working, and put it in the front window of the gallery. '' Unlike Carson 15 years later, she was not impressed.

``I was horrified. Not in the front window. It's funny, because now I'm begging him for work for the gallery.

He can write and design as well as draw and paint. I tried to discourage it but it's in his genes, I suppose.''

Benson said that being exposed to artists and their work at the gallery has influenced him. ``I saw a lot of different work, and each new artist we showed would influence me in a new way,'' he said. ``It was very interesting to me, hearing them speak about what it was that went into their art.''

A trip to the studio and home of successful local artist Charles Sibley, and an ample dose of peer pressure, helped him change his mind. ``Sibley's studio seemed like a kind of ideal. He was in his own environment, doing what he wanted. I liked the freedom of it.

Then my art teacher and some friends encouraged me to go to a portfolio review in March, and the Maryland Institute accepted me, right off the bat. That was the deciding factor.''

Benson's acceptance at the institute, after such short tenure as a painter, was no small feat. The Maryland Institute, College of Art in Baltimore, is the oldest art school in the country and is ranked by U.S. News and World Report as one of the nation's top five art schools.

Kevin Dumby, admissions counselor and recruiter for the school, explains that only 200 of 900 applicants, were accepted as freshmen. ``His drawings were very good and his paintings very expressionistic,'' said Dumby, himself an artist and graduate of Virginia Wesleyan. ``I think he is a very talented young man. I believe he'll do very well.''

Benson's own views of his future are guarded. ``I see myself struggling, not achieving so much financial success as personal success, and the freedom to do something I love.''

by CNB