Photographed by: Dario Lasagni

All artists are deeply attuned to the world around them. As three painters working in Brooklyn, it is impossible for Benfey, Hazan and Hibit not to be affected by the changing seasons and the abundance and/or scarcity of light that accompanies these changes. They each approach the natural and manmade worlds by mindfully using pigments and mediums to create paintings imbued with very specific light, time and place.  The painter Richard Diebenkorn once observed that "Non-painters often say, 'What a lovely light there,’ but I myself don’t see it. My own approach is very different. I see the light only at the end of working on a painting. I mean, I discover the light of a place gradually, and only through painting it."

Nick Benfey transforms quotidian scenes of parking lots, highway exits and densely packed tall buildings with magical lighting sources and multiple viewpoints.  Many of his aerial city views distill the geometry of these subjects into abstract paintings with flickering lights illuminating the night skies.  Windows in a high rise tower can appear like glittering diamonds snaked across a dark field with linear architectural elements adding to the mysterious, mesmerizing mood.

Elizabeth Hazan uses sensuous colors and lines which coalesce to form abstracted images of landscape, specifically the natural world of the east end of Long Island.  A deep and permeating sunlight particular to this geography can be seen as if glimpsed from a passing car window on the way to the ocean.  In her own words: “… (the) paintings mix gestural topography with elements of modernist abstraction. The work depicts a heightened version of nature off-kilter, evoking a charged atmosphere, familiar to the viewer yet verging on the surreal.”

Eric Hibit creates highly detailed, surrealistic worlds awash in phosphorescent, glowing light made through a labor intensive build-up up of small discs of pigment.  These dreamy, light infused paintings are seemingly benign, but hint at a darker more eerie presence just beneath the surface. Hibit turns his lens onto close-ups of the natural world- mushrooms, frogs, ears of corn, plants growing in a greenhouse. While his subject matter varies, there is always a disarmingly playful (winking to the viewer) energy to all of his work.

Heskin Projects, May 2023
Elizabeth Heskin, Tracey Ravdin Perlmutter and Patricia Spergel

Please contact Elizabeth Heskin at eheskin@gmail.com to schedule an appointment and for further information.

Nick Benfey (born Amherst, MA) received a BA from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, ME in 2015 and an MFA from Hunter College in New York in 2021. He has exhibited internationally at Elizabeth Moss Gallery, Portland, ME; Sears-Peyton Gallery, NY; 11 Newell Gallery, Brooklyn; Annarumma Gallery, Naples, Italy; and New System Exhibitions, Portland, ME, among others. Most recently he was included in the Center for Maine Contemporary Art’s 2023 Biennial in Rockland, ME.

Elizabeth Hazan (born New York City) is a New York based visual artist working in Brooklyn. She attended Bryn Mawr College and the New York Studio School. She was awarded a fellowship to the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and has twice been a resident of Yaddo. Recent shows include Sundown at the Madoo Conservancy in Sagaponack, NY, High Noon, at the Duck Creek Art Center in Springs, NY, Heat Wave at Johannes Vogt Gallery, NY, Body to Land at Turn Gallery, NY, and Psychedelic Landscape at Eric Firestone Gallery, NY.   Her work has been written about in Hyperallergic, Forbes, Two Coats of Paint, Art Critical, The Brooklyn Rail and the Art Newspaper. Hazan serves as the director and founder of Platform Project Space in Brooklyn, NY.

Eric Hibit (born Rochester, NY) received his BFA from the Corcoran College of Art & Design and his MFA from Yale University. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally.  His shows include: Morgan Lehman Gallery, My Pet Ram, One River School of Art + Design, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Anna Kustera Gallery and Max Protetch Gallery, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Wegee Center for the Arts, Curator’s Office in Washington, DC, Geoffrey Young Gallery in Great Barrington, MA, The Cape Cod Museum of Art, University of Vermont. His work has been written about in the Washington Post, The Village Voice, Hyperallergic, Newsweek, New York Times and New York Post. Hibit has taught studio art at Drexel University, The Cooper Union,Tyler School of Art, NYU and Hunter College. He is currently Co-Director of Ortega y Gasset Projects, an artist-run gallery based in Brooklyn, where he has curated exhibitions since 2014.