The mission of Bentley Gallery is to present works that are beautiful, exquisitely crafted, and that force us to change how we experience the spaces we share with art. The works of art exhibited at the gallery are intended to be experienced again and again over time, influential of their surroundings, as well as interpreted by a variety of viewers. Many of the artists whose works you will find at Bentley are pioneers in the field of art, founding members of their respective movements, with a commitment to bringing meaningful art experiences to the public.
For example, working in a non-objective style that developed out of the Abstract Expressionism movement, painter Dorothy Fratt explores the relationships of color. She is a colorist in the purist sense of the word; intuitively and strategically arranging forms and colors on large canvasses and in prints, creating works that are deceptively simple. Pulling colors from her surroundings, Fratt quickly works through hundreds of color sketches and compositional thumbnails to create a single work that achieves both color harmony and discord. Her studio practice pursues the creation and discovery of ever-new color phenomena that is both personal to the artist and accessible to the viewer to bring their own associations and considerations. Fratt’s work has been presented in numerous exhibitions across the country, as well as included in the permanent collections of the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Phoenix Art Museum, Tucson Museum of Art, Arizona State University Art Museum, Museum of Northern Arizona, Burlington Northern, IBM, and General Electric.
The painters exhibited at Bentley Gallery represent a wide variety of approaches and inclinations, but all use painting as a vehicle on which styles intermingle, develop, and collide. Their work represents traditional painting – in that the artists engage with the tradition of painting, and yet they test and reshape historical viewpoints and ask, artistically, questions surrounding what is painting today.
Bentley Gallery has mounted many historic exhibitions throughout its 30+-year history as a contemporary art gallery in Phoenix, Arizona. Exhibitions have included paintings by Jim Dine, Jennifer Bartlett, Gustavo Acosta, Julian Schnabel, Frank Stella, Donald Sultan, Pat Steir, Chuck Close, Carrie Mae Weems, Michael David, Herbert Ferber, Helen Frankenthaler, Lee Friedlander, Robert Kushner, Luis Gonzalez Palma, Adolph Gottleib, Keith Haring, James Havard, Gary Lang, Martin Mull, Marcia Myers, Hiro Yokose, Andy Warhol, John Sonsini, Klaus Rinke, Andres Serano, Tim Bavington, Mala Breuer, Feodor Voronov, Ali Smith, Oliver Arms, and many, many more.
