Heather Benjamin 'Cavegirl Monologue'

Heather Benjamin’s work has been exciting and unsettling viewers for ten years and counting. Having spent years with her practice firmly rooted in DIY zine and comics culture, Benjamin’s drawings of ultra femmes covered in blood, bugs, lipstick, and leg hair have typically been made with the intent of mass reproduction, through photocopying and screen printing. With her new work, Benjamin moves in an a more expansive direction, creating pieces whose primary motivations are not exclusively to be reproduced and reprinted as their final form, but are instead made to be viewed as singular and precious objects. For the artist, this new intention opens up infinite possibilities to experiment with scale, color, and medium, in ways she had not yet attempted.

'Cavegirl Monologue' is Benjamin’s most substantial collection to date and the works range from the most minuscule of talismans to larger than life representations of female creatures. Much of the art in this collection is new and unreleased, but it also contains a selection from her artist’s books and foldout zines, including the recent 'Romantic Story' collection that was wildly popular and is now out of print. It also contains paintings from her 2017 debut solo exhibition at Dress Shop in Brooklyn. The images compiled here are intended to be displayed together, all falling under the umbrella of her most recent work but also providing an integral passage in the cavegirl’s monologue.