About
about
bio
Hi there!
Bente was born in Jutland, Denmark, but most of her life, education and artistic development happened in Adelaide, South Australia. She originally trained as an art teacher at the South Australian School of Art and has since expanded her qualifications into Photographic Imaging, Graphic Design and Post Graduate studies in Photography. She began her artistic expression through print making and painting in acrylics and oils, with the last 20 years committed to the digital photographic medium. She is a keen educator, supporting aspiring photography enthusiasts in developing their creativity, skills and love of photography through mentoring and urban photo walks.
She has exhibited locally and abroad and has achieved overseas awards including an Honourable Mention in the inaugural Sienna Photographic Awards in Italy in 2015.
Her work is sourced from wanderings in urban, industrial, and disrupted natural environments, curious for the unexpected and unusual within the ordinary.
Her style acknowledges the strong influences of the paintings and drawings of Australian painter Jeffrey Smart; the essence of all that is Japanese and her Danish heritage and its tradition of timeless simplicity of form and purity of functional design.
artistic statement
“All that is structural and architectural underpins my work: the authenticity and integrity of materials; the respect for the cultural and historical; and the allure of the perfect, newly erected constructions that exemplify humanity’s hopeful endeavours to dominate and control their environment.
My work seeks to express the beauty, tension, and spiritual fascination with the Japanese aesthetic of Mono No Aware (the sensitivity and beauty of the ephemeral) and Wabi Sabi (incompletion, imperfection, and transience), chasing the flaws from which decline is inevitable.
These have nurtured my passion for structure in my work, seeking my own compositional perfections through the elements of form, pattern, texture, tone, colour, space and the rectangle.
My photographs are non-reactionary, considered, unsentimental, constructed with careful control and intended to elicit curiosity.”
curriculum vitae
• Graduate Diploma of Visual Arts and Design (Photography), UniSA, 2015
• Retired member of Advisory Group for UniSA School of Art, Architecture and Design
• Volunteer Gallery Guide to the general public at the Art Gallery of South Australia
• Volunteer Educator to school groups at the Art Gallery of South Australia
• Freelance photographer, graphic designer and artist through private and corporate commissions
• Bachelor of Visual Communications (Graphic Design) (UniSA 2002)
• Certificate IV (Photo-imaging) - Centre for Creative Photography (2006)
• Art and Design teaching in NSW and South Australia for over 23 years
• Diploma in Teaching (Secondary-Fine Arts): South Australian School of Art and Western Teachers College (1971)
exhibitions (selection)
2018: One Silver award: National Australian Institute of Professional Photographers (AIPP) Awards
2018: Two Silver Awards: SA AIPP Epson Professional Photography Awards (commercial)
2018: Finalist (architecture): Travel Photographers Society (Kuala Lumpur)
2017: SA Life Magazine, December/January 15th Anniversary Issue
2017: Festival of Architecture and Design Hero Shots 2.0 exhibition
2017: One Silver, two Silver with Distinction awards: National Australian Institute of Professional Photographers (AIPP) Awards
2017: Emerging Photographer of the year: SA AIPP Epson Professional Photography Awards
2016: Finalist-Emerging Photographer of the Year: SA AIPP Epson Professional Photography Awards
2016: Three Silver Awards: SA AIPP Epson Professional Photography Awards (architecture)
2015: Honourable Mention: Siena International Photo Awards Exhibition (architecture)
2015: Two photos selected as Finalists: Siena International Photo Awards Exhibition (architecture) (over 17,00 entries)