kate bentley - artist

The main undercurrent of the third body of work, as with the Red Riding Hood series, is a journey – more particularly the transitional journey through adolescence to adulthood.
In my work there became a link between what was happening in my home life and what was happening in my studio. My teenage children are undergoing a rapid period of transformation from childhood into adulthood.
In hindsight this parallel was somewhat inevitable.

The black and white print-like quality to some of these paintings-similar to Elle avait vu le loup and Wolf soup is used to capture a cinematic and dream-like state.
This series has indeed made me consider that maybe the stories that link childhood to adulthood e.g. Sleeping Beauty and Briar Rose – (and many others), perhaps were established as warning ‘metaphors’ to aid this vulnerable transition
A far cry from the classic understanding of fairy tales.