art by bennett

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My journey with objects began when I discovered the boxes of Joseph Cornell. Something deep within me stirred and I thought, that’s for me.

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I make story-based assemblages from things that have already lived a life, and am fascinated by the possibility that an object can carry a story long after the people who touched it are gone.

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This fascination began when I was a child in Wilmington, Delaware, collecting whatever caught my attention: scraps of wood, rusty nails, seashells, nuts, twigs and dried flowers from the woods next door, pieces of old carpet, and whatever else I could rescue from my father’s workbench.

 

I put these things into boxes and called them art.

 

Decades later, I’m essentially (and joyfully) still doing the same thing.

 

My materials now include old suitcases, vintage baby shoes, beloved objects and photographs from my childhood, handwritten words by strangers and my first-grade copybook, animal bones, bird nests, and the accumulated debris of lives long gone.

 

Much of my work looks toward histories that have been ignored, distorted, or deliberately forgotten—particularly the history and legacy of enslaved people in the United States. Other pieces are deeply autobiographical, exploring childhood, addiction, grief, love, and the strange collection of experiences that makes a life.

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At the end of the day, I want to share meaningful stories and arresting compositions. I pray my work does that.

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Ultimately, I make assemblages because objects matter, and we remember our stories through those objects.

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