Bridgette Mayer Gallery Presents:
Flight, a solo exhibition by Allen Bentley
September 2 – October 25, 2025
Artist Reception & Happy Hour: Friday, September 12th, 5:00 – 7:30pm
Philadelphia, PA – August 1, 2025. Bridgette Mayer Gallery is thrilled to announce Flight, a solo exhibition by gallery artist Allen Bentley. Flight features all new paintings and drawings that celebrate Bentley’s appreciation for ballet and contemporary dance. Using bold, gestural mark-making inspired by live dance performances, Bentley captures the passion, vulnerability, and strength imbued in the artform. His work explores the tension between control and surrender, and the shifting lines of the moving figure. Flight will be on view from Tuesday, September 2 to Saturday, October 25 at Bridgette Mayer Gallery. On Friday, September 12th, the gallery will host an artist reception & happy hour from 5:00 to 7:30pm in celebration of Bentley’s new work.
As a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s MFA program and a faculty member at Montgomery College, Bentley is an accomplished painter known for his expressive depictions of bodies in motion. In discussing his most recent body of work, Bentley states:
I follow motion as both muse and method—each brushstroke a gesture, each mark a moment caught. The dancers I paint do not pose; they move, they falter, they surge forward—always becoming. This series emerges from a fascination with the authenticity found in physical expression. I am not depicting dance. I am chasing the truth that lives in a hand ever reaching, a chest lifted—mid-breath, a foot barely brushing the floor. The language of the body, untethered from performance, declares who we are.
My process mirrors the movement I depict. I don’t arrive with answers—I explore. Through layers of abstraction and threads of realism, I map the tension between clarity and blur, between presence and disappearance. Some figures emerge fully; others dissolve into the rhythm of the mark, the sweep of color, the breath of the canvas. I am not seeking the specificity of a person but the authenticity of motion, felt one mark at a time.
What rises here is not only movement or dance, but truth made visible—earned in motion and claimed in mark. These gestures carry the weight of becoming, the grace of reaching without certainty, and the fire of owning your rhythm. The body speaks without apology, as do the marks—raw, searching, unhidden. We yearn to express, to make the grand statement, to announce ourselves with fury and grace. We lift ourselves in defiance of boundaries and burdens. We take flight.
About Allen Bentley:
Allen Bentley’s exploration of motion runs throughout his career. He uses quick, energetic touches to reflect the dynamic nature of our quest for connection. Primarily a figurative artist, Bentley turns to dance as both metaphor and method—using the moving body as a way to explore themes of tension, intimacy, and rhythm. Pushing, pulling, flirting, chasing: these are the moments he captures in a flurry of gestural marks.
He received his Master of Fine Arts from the University of Pennsylvania in 2000 and his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Western Carolina University in 1996. His work has been exhibited across the country, with solo shows in Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, and San Diego. Bentley is represented by the Bridgette Mayer Gallery in Philadelphia, PA and Jo Fleming Contemporary Art in Annapolis, MD. His work has appeared at the Philadelphia International Airport and in Artworks at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In 2009, he had his first solo museum exhibition at the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts in Wilmington, DE.
Bentley recently completed a commission for Lamborghini celebrating the 60th anniversary of the company. The painting is on view at The Automobili Lamborghini Museum in Bologna, Italy.
He teaches Figure Drawing, Painting, and Drawing at Montgomery College in Rockville, MD, and serves as chair of the Christopher Lyon Scholarship selection committee at the University of Pennsylvania. Bentley lives in Clarksburg, MD with his wife and children.
Exhibition information: Flight will be on view from Tuesday, September 2 to Saturday, October 25, 2025 at Bridgette Mayer Gallery. On Friday, September 12, Bridgette Mayer Gallery will host an Artist Reception & Happy Hour from 5:00 to 7:30 pm.
Gallery information: Bridgette Mayer Gallery is free and open to the public. We are located at 709 Walnut Street, 1st Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Gallery hours are by appointment on Tuesday and Wednesday– Saturday, 10:00am – 5:00pm.