Hidden Waters / Arid Land Springs at Florida Museum of Photographic Arts Exhibition 2021
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As a child, Benedict spent so much time captivated by a photograph of her grandmother standing by a giant Saguaro that on her first visit to the Sonoran Desert, she felt it was home. Desert landscapes can be sparse yet beautiful, appearing barren until the smallest drop of rain brings it to life. Benedict is passionate about protecting that beauty and vitality from the ongoing human-made threats to their survival.
Benedict began her art career as a publications designer at The Museum of Northern Arizona on the Colorado Plateau and for National Park History Associations, roles which acted as early catalysts for her curiosity about natural and cultural history. A year-long photography trip around the world and subsequent work as a travel photographer further piqued her interest in the parts of the world at the edge of our attention that, while unobserved and unseen, profoundly shape our understanding of our surroundings. Benedict’s projects center on the role that landscape plays in the human experience.
Her earlier project subject matters range from memory landscapes to electrical towers in the American Western, to a child’s play in natural history dioramas. Her recent work Hidden Waters combines art and scientific research, exploring impacts of climate change and overuse on endangered dryland springs in the West.
Gridlines in the Overgrowth Exhibition at Decordova Museum of Art & Sculpture 2014
Earth Now American Photographers and the Environment - book cover photograph Cedar Wash from Gridlines Click here to purchase: Earth Now, American Photographers and the Environment by Katherine Ware
Benedict is a winner of Center Santa Fe’s Project Launch Award, she was nominated for Prix Pictet, a winner of two Puffin Grants, as well as a Joshua Tree Highlands Art and a Shoshone Art Residency, and participant in the Autry Museum of the American West’s, Art & Science Collide Out of Site: Survey Science and the Hidden West. Her work focuses on overlooked elements in the natural world which have an underestimated influence on our environment. Recent work - the Hidden Waters series combines art and scientific research, exploring impacts of climate change and overuse on endangered dryland springs in the West. Benedict uses a muted color palette to emphasize springs’ unusual beauty and fragility commenting on how the enigmatic presence of beauty can hide a more complex reality of loss. This desire to tell environmental stories began while working as a graphic designer for the Colorado Plateau’s Natural History Museum of Northern Arizona.
Benedict’s work resides in the Nevada Art Museum, Center for Art and Environment, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles, CA); Center for Creative Photography (Tucson, AZ); Harvard Art Museum (Cambridge, MA); George Eastman House (Rochester, NY); Decordova Museum of Art & Sculpture, (Lincoln, MA); New Mexico Museum of Art, (Santa Fe NM); Philadelphia Museum of Art; and various corporate and private collections. Selected solo exhibits include Sahara West Gallery, (Las Vegas, NV); Florida Museum of Photographic Art (Tampa, FL); and Texas Women’s University (Denton, TX); Griffin Museum of Photography (Winchester, MA); Museum of Northern Arizona (Flagstaff, AZ).
Group exhibit highlights include: Ceding Ground, Griffin Museum of Photography (Winchester, MA); Photoeye Gallery (Santa Fe, NM); and Women in Nature, Louis Bernal Gallery, (Tucson, AZ). Benedict recently a Massachusetts Cultural Council Finalist. She has lectured at Southern Wetlands Conference in NM, Springs Stewardship Institute and Sky Island Alliance in AZ. Benedict’s work has been written about by William Fox in Out of Site: Survey Science and the Hidden West, Wild Visions: Wilderness As Image and Idea, By Ben A. Mintneer, Mark Klett, Stephen J. Pyne, and Toronto Globe and Mail: Hidden Waters, The Story of Endangered and Disappearing Desert Springs in North America.