Using the patina process on bronze plates as his canvas, Nathan Bennett mines new veins in painting. His landscapes have a surreal quality, a sense of otherness, which is partly due to his unusual medium. Taking the chemicals normally used to finish bronze sculptures — the oxides, nitrates and acids — Bennett instead wields them as he would paint on an eighth-inch-thick sheet of silica bronze that becomes his canvas. Bennett sees his work as alchemy. He feels that to fully understand his art, knowing a bit of its history is important. Alchemy started in the first century A.D. The predominant goal of alchemists was to transmute basic metals into gold to bring unimaginable wealth and power. When religion started to play a part in Alchemy, it became a spiritual journey - Heaven and eternal life becoming the goal. Alchemists used their intimate knowledge of metals to adorn sculpture with what is now referred to as a patina, and the patineur was born. During the centuries that followed, patinas stayed very basic; copper, sulfur, and ferric were applied using fire. Bennett made a clear and calculated decision to turn the art of patina back into alchemy. “In the true spirit of alchemy, and with basic metals, I sought not for wealth, transmuting the metals into gold, but to manipulate them into a one-of-a-kind work of art. Using fire and metal, my spirituality was visualized, connecting me to heaven and God.”