Jonathan Benson is a British contemporary artist, born in Birkenhead in 1992.

Benson briefly studied Architecture at the University of Liverpool and Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU) in China, before going on to study Fine Art at the University of Chester.

Following his studies, he worked within the commercial art world, beginning at a street art gallery in New Brighton, Merseyside, before moving to London, where he worked at fine art galleries in Greenwich and later Shoreditch. He subsequently worked as a studio assistant, working alongside established figures from the contemporary fine art and street art worlds. These roles also took him internationally, including to India and the Middle East, where he travelled as an artist consultant and assistant, including projects surrounding the Abu Dhabi Formula 1 Grand Prix.

These experiences, alongside periods spent travelling through China, India and the Middle East, have become an important influence on his own practice. Benson frequently works from photographs, observations and memories gathered through travel, using them as starting points from which images are simplified, reconstructed and reinterpreted through paint.

His influences include Andrew Wyeth, David Hockney, and Peter Doig.

He is particularly interested in fleeting encounters and the relationship between figures and their surroundings. Benson’s recent narrative genre paintings draw from instances in which light, place and human presence seem to momentarily cohere. His work often begins with these almost alchemical meetings: brief intersections of circumstance in which we pass into and out of another person’s existence, sharing a place or moment before it disappears. Through image-making, these encounters are reconstructed rather than simply documented, allowing memory, observation and the physical act of making to reshape the original experience.

Benson’s multidisciplinary practice encompasses oil and acrylic painting, mixed media and assemblage. Moving between figurative painting and more object-based work, his practice is connected by an interest in composition, material, colour, place and the transformation of everyday imagery and objects.

In 2026, Benson worked as a live artist during the Monaco Formula 1 Grand Prix and has also exhibited in association with the ATP Tour in Mallorca.

He lives and works in London

Exhibtions

2026 - ATP Tour Majorca, Grove Gallery Majorca

2026 - Monaco F1 Live Painting, Sucasa & Grove Gallery

2020 - “Together” - Ourtypes - Group Exhibition, Oakland Gallery New Brighton

2018 - “How We Look”, Lightnight, Road Studios, Liverpool

2018 - Liverpool Art Fair, Participating Artist

2018 - Fellowship interim Show - Chester University/ Wirral Met, Birkenhead