Project Room: Shifting Ground: Benny Brankovic
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RHODES is pleased to present Shifting Ground, a new body of work by Copenhagen-based artist Benny Brankovic, marking his RHODES debut.
Working across painting and sculpture, Brankovic employs a variety of colour and texture to reframe the familiar, exploring the unexpected through everyday floral motifs.
At the centre of Shifting Ground are four paintings on canvas, depicting vibrant flowers created in vinyl, enamel, and Mosuo Black. From a distance, the works appear playful and vivid; on closer inspection, the paint application reveals an ongoing tension between form, colour, and texture. Brankovic balances simplified compositions with bold, often unnatural colours, using the physical contrast of colour and medium to heighten their visual tension. Throughout Brankovic’s practice colour is not descriptive but intuitive, shaped by memory and emotion rather than observation.
Alongside these canvases, Brankovic presents three sculptural works. Constructed from heavy-duty materials such as fired stoneware and concrete, these pieces extend his interest in juxtaposition, pairing weighty substances with familiar, domestic forms. One work takes the recognisable shape of a mug, transformed through Brankovic’s process into a concrete facsimile inscribed with the phrase “Not My Cup of Tea” in enamel - a pop of colour against the depth of Mosuo Black.
Another sculpture, Tilt, approaches the unexpected from a different angle. At first glance, it appears to be a metallic green vase holding a red flower, already unsettled by its deep black stem. Yet while the vase maintains a three-dimensional form, the back of the flower is flattened and painted black; visually at odds with both its own brightness and the continued shape of the vase below.
Motifs of flowers recur throughout the exhibition, placed within patterned, semi-abstract landscapes of sloping forms and soft pastel tones. These compositions reflect Brankovic’s interest in depicting scenes as they are felt and remembered rather than directly observed. No two flowers are alike; differences in decoration, colour, and texture produce a series of distinct yet interconnected works.
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Selected works
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Collecting
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