Jason Benjamin

Jason Benjamin was an Australian painter who was known for his large-scale landscape works and his portraits of celebrities and musicians. He was born in Melbourne in 1971, but spent his childhood in the US and Mexico. He studied at the Pratt Institute in New York City and returned to Australia in the early 1990s. He won several awards for his paintings, including the Mosman Art Prize and the Kings School Art Prize. He was also a finalist in the Archibald Prize multiple times and won the Packing Room Prize in 2005 for his portrait of actor Bill Hunter. He had more than 40 solo shows in Australia and overseas, and his works were exhibited in the National Gallery of Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria, and the Parliament House Collection. He was described as a master of the mixed message and a romantic landscape artist who told stories of love, loss, and romance through his paintings. He died at the age of 50 in February 2021. His body was found in the Murrumbidgee River near Carrathool, New South Wales, after he went missing from a campsite. He had been working on a new exhibition and writing poems before his death. His death was mourned by his friends, fans, and fellow artists who remembered him as a passionate, talented, and generous person.