LOVE – CAMP – EXPLORE - DREAMS

Bill Bensley’s First Exhibition with River City Bangkok

28 January – 22 February 2022 at RCB Galleria (2^nd floor)
All Proceeds to Fund Conservation and Wildlife Protection

As someone who was never formally trained as an artist, Bill Bensley is constantly learning from other artists. He observes how they manifest their own perspective of their surroundings, emulating their styles while gradually finding his own which is full of humour, gorgeous details, brilliant colours and enchanting figures. The story of this body of works – which are available for sale online and at the exhibition – is told in four chapters, with a varied use of mediums from painting to sculpture, showing Bill’s evolution as an artist, as he delves into his surroundings to create art from daily life.

To read about the Shinta Mani Wild click here.

Four Chapters of Love – Camp – Explore – Dreams Exhibition

My interpretation of Outsider art flows along the approach I bring to it…

I paint to LOVE, to show CAMP through my eyes, to show the world I EXPLORE, to DREAM and most recently, to PLAY – as I always do, for if it is not fun I don’t do it!

(Left) No.18 Jirachais Nursery

(Right) No.25 The Greatest Danger to Our Future is Apathy

The LOVE part of the show is artwork all about the love we share for each other as humans, but also for our planet. As an environmentalist and a landscape architect first and foremost, it is very close to my heart. I seek to teach people through art – much as I do through hotels. I love variety and colors in my design, and believe the only thing that should be separated by color is laundry: here we also have paintings about racism, where I looked at a very serious issue with a touch of humor, juxtaposing traditional roles.

(Left) No.27 High Maintenance Doesn’t Begin to Cover It
(Right) No.42 Only Three More Hours Before My Next Dose

CAMP is about the idiosyncratic behaviors of the LGBT community – my dear Friends of Dorothy. Having made it home for over 30 years, I love Thailand for a myriad of reasons, but especially the open mindedness of people here. These pieces show the LGBT community in Thailand through my eyes, as they often appear at Baan Botanica most weekends for a party.

(Left) No.34 Paradise in Papua

(Right) No.65 The Beehive Divas of Bangkok 1968

A large part of the EXPLORE segment shows the kind people of Papua, who I met in late 2019 while aboard a boat called the Kudanil Explorer. We explored very remote islands that have existed for thousands of years with extraordinarily little connection to modern society. As a speaker of Indonesian, I was able to learn the local stories, and they were only too happy to let me sketch them. In EXPLORE there are also pieces inspired by other travels around the world – Portugal, Luang Prabang, and I imagine my upcoming trip to South America!

(Left) No.64 From Royalty to Commoners….Nan buzzes
(Right) No.131 Untitled

Before last we have DREAMS, for I have a fair bit of imagination – my “work” is to think up the wildest, most fun designs we can possibly dream up after all! This is an adventure into the figments of my imagination. This venture into the subconscious and the dream state also ties back to the start of the exhibition – the Bensley Cinema – where guests learnt about who Bill is as a designer, and what BENSLEY does as a studio. Dreams, for designers, are the starting point of everything.

But as designers, most of all, I believe we must experiment and PLAY – which is exactly what I have been doing over the past few months. I reveal this in the last part of the show, with pieces of art and sculpture that are a step away from the rest! I literally played with fire, wood, beeswax, baking soda, nails, ceramics… you name it!

All sales revenue from artworks will be donated towards Shinta Mani Foundation.