Collection: Clara Bennet

Bennet trained in life drawing early on and never really left the practice behind, even as her work evolved toward looser, more atmospheric painting. Her pieces centre on the female figure, rendered with soft, impressionistic brushwork and confident, economical line — often leaving parts of a figure unfinished or suggested rather than fully resolved. She's drawn to movement and gesture over precise likeness, treating each figure less as a portrait than as a mood or a moment caught mid-motion. She works from live models when she can and from memory when she can't, and says the unfinished quality in her work is intentional. "I want you to feel like you walked in on someone," she says, "not like you're looking at a finished portrait."