Meet Greg Benz | Artist | Gallery Owner & Curator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Greg Benz and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Greg, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
I’ve been an artist for over 20 years, so I’ve been involved in the arts community here in Canada in various ways. That being said over this time I’ve had the opportunity to meet so many great artists and collaborate, hang shows, and be represented by many galleries over the years.

All of this knowledge really was an excellent base for what I wanted to do with my own gallery (www.thebenzgallery.com) and I also had a great base of artists I knew I wanted to work with and represent here at my gallery. The gallery space that I took over was also a well-respected gallery here in the city for over 50 years which also helped as people were familiar with the location.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
As a Canadian artist my own work focuses on abstract landscapes that are heavily textured and based on my travels around Ontario. My painting process is made up of all sorts of mixed mediums and acrylics and through the years of time in the studio I’ve come up with my own sort of style. I use nontraditional tools in my process and heat / or a blowtorch to make things crack or separate to create interesting effects in my landscapes.

I’ve taken this a step further with my own art gallery (www.thebenzgallery.com) which focuses on Abstract Landscapes, Modern Abstracts, and Ceramic work. I had purchased the Art Gallery pre covid so once I had everything ready to go and the Artist roster all set Covid had just started. To say I was nervous about opening the gallery during a worldwide pandemic was an understatement.

But with my social media following and my online knowledge, I was confident that things would be ok. I launched the gallery online through the pandemic and opened in person whenever we were able to and we’ve been shipping work all across Canada and worldwide.

I’ve always been an artistic person, I was a professional Dj / Electronic Artist in the late 90s (Benz & MD) and ran my own record label for a few years, then ran a successful Screenprinting company for over 10 years all alongside of doing my own artwork alongside these things. Whatever I was interested in I always tried to learn and spend as much of my spare time focusing and learning the skills needed. I also don’t sleep much 🙂

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
A lot of my success comes down to hard work and really staying focused on whatever it is I’m into at the time. But the school Beal Art here in London, Ontario definitely deserves a lot of credit. This school really gave me a foundation for the arts and I met to this day lifelong friends from that school. I didn’t realize at the time what my time at that school would open me up too all these years later.

Website: www.thebenzgallery.com. / www.gregbenz.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebenzgallery. https://www.instagram.com/gregbenz_artwork/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thebenzgallery

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@gregbenz