Hard Paintings and Soft Photographs

Karl Benjamin’s geometric color paintings have brought him more than 60 solo exhibitions, a permanent place in major national museums and recognition as one of Southern California’s most important “hard-edge” painters.

But Benjamin, a professor at Pomona College, could be called the “Accidental Artist.”

“In college I had every major except art,” said Benjamin, 64, who graduated from the University of Redlands in 1949 with a combined degree in history, philosophy and English. “When I graduated, the only job I could get was teaching elementary school with an emergency credential, and they made me teach art. I didn’t know anything about it--except the names of Rembrandt and Picasso.

“So I told my class to fill up the paper with pretty colors. And it just kind of turned me on.”

Soon after, Benjamin began to read about art, attend exhibitions and experiment on his own, embarking on a lifelong exploration of the relationship between color and shape, painting in the “hard-edge” style that features geometric figures across the canvas. More than 50 of his works are now on display at the Cal State Northridge Main Gallery, in an untitled retrospective show that spans 1955 to 1987.

Also on exhibit are 50 photographs by Frederick Hammersley, who is best known for his abstract black and white paintings. The show, titled “Paris, Berlin and Albuquerque,” features photos Hammersley took while stationed in Paris and Berlin during World War II, as well as photos taken more recently in Albuquerque, N.M., where Hammersley, 71, lives.

It’s hard to take in the Benjamin show all at once. The large, energetic paintings, hung in a relatively small space, seem to compete for attention.

Some feature bright, primary colors, while others manage a vibrancy with more muted tones of peach, steel blue, rust and olive green. But all have a strong sense of motion, achieved through use of color with geometric shapes--squares, triangles, diamonds, circles and trapezoids.

“What intrigues me is the scope of geometry he can come up with,” said gallery Director Louise Lewis, who helped organize the Benjamin show with officials at Shasta Community College in Redding, Ca., where the show was originally presented last February.

Benjamin’s early works seem to move in a slow, heavy motion. A 1958 piece titled “Gothic Symmetry,” for instance, uses stretched triangles and diamonds to evoke a dark, brooding sense. “The Stage,” painted the same year, uses trapezoids within trapezoids to create the image of slowly revolving doors.

In striking contrast, Benjamin’s late 1960s paintings emit a staccato sense of movement; small boxes seem to jump off the canvas. The most volatile paintings from that period feature checkerboards of small squares, each divided into four triangles. The triangles, painted in bright red, blue, green, purple and yellow, seem to twirl around, giving the effect of a kaleidoscope in motion.

In some of his works from the 1980s, Benjamin returned to large shapes with subtle colors. But, he said, “To me they look very different. A lot of the very early ones had a strong sense of figuration in the background, whereas later on they became more totally abstract.”

The color schemes in his paintings appear calculated, but Benjamin said they do not follow any system or theory. “I just stare at a shape until is says, ‘light blue,’ ” he said.

Benjamin’s works range from $6,000-$10,000.

Hammersley, who gained recognition with Benjamin in a 1959 Los Angeles County Museum of Art show of “abstract classicists,” is also known for hard-edge painting. But Lewis said she sought Hammersley’s understated, soothing photographs to provide a contrast to Benjamin’s large, colorful paintings. “The Benjamin exhibition is such a high volatility show,” Lewis said. “So you come in here, and it’s a very nice counterpoint.”

Hammersley’s 50 photographs are displayed in a striking manner: 48 on one wall, and one each on two adjacent walls. “The photos become the elements of the grid, which has always been an aspect of his work,” Lewis said.

Ironically, the arrangement makes the photos less overwhelming to view than if they were evenly spread on the three walls. “If you combine things, you feel like you haven’t spent so many calories,” Hammersley said in a phone interview from his home in Albuquerque. “You relax.”

All of his photos are stimulated by “the odd, the unexpected and the lovely,” Hammersley said.

The odd: A young girl’s knees, which seem to lose their identity under the intense scrutiny of the camera. “Body parts are marvelous,” Hammersley said. “When you photograph them close up, they become something else.”

The unexpected: Lightning strikes the town of Golden, N.M., (population 25). Hammersley, standing near a small church and cemetery, captures the jagged bolt above the mountains and desert plains.

The lovely: A pensive teen-age girl. “She was not pleased with how she looked, and my heart went out to her,” Hammersley said. “It’s so lovely when they’re in the middle place when they’re not a child or an adult--that lovely, sweet image.”

Hammersley’s photographs span four decades and a diverse group of subjects, but they have at least one thing in common: An attempt at honesty.

“What I found so remarkable and slippery about image-making is how long it takes to find the view that looks most like the subject,” Hammersley said in a statement that hangs on the gallery wall. “There may be just one viewing place where the object looks most like itself. And, many places the subject does not look like itself at all. What attracts me is that one telling place. When you get it, you get more than the fact of it--you get something that is alive.”

Hammersley’s photos cost $500.

Both exhibitions run through Feb. 9. The Main Gallery is located in the Fine Arts Building at CSUN, 18111 Nordhoff St. Hours are noon to 4 p.m. on Mondays and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays. Admission is free. For information, call 885-2226.