Scott Benefield is an artist, educator and writer who received his MFA from Ohio State University in 1990, following a year spent in Sweden on a Fulbright-Hays grant. He is a past president of the Glass Art Society and currently serves on its Advisory Committee. He has been a Fellow at the Creative Glass Center of America and an artist-in-residence at North Lands Creative Glass, Vrij Glas (Netherlands), Pittsburgh Glass Center and the Tacoma Museum of Glass. He has taught workshops in Italian cane techniques at the Penland School of Crafts, the Pilchuck Glass School, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, the National College of Art and Design (Ireland), the Glass Furnace (Turkey) and was a visiting scholar at Osaka University of the Arts in 2009.

Benefield’s current work reflects his passion for mid century Italian glass design. Italian understanding of the material has resulted in a myriad of sophisticated glass making techniques which exploit glass’ fluidity, fragility and transparency. Benefield takes these exquisite skills, decorations and forms as a starting point but pushes further by intentionally disrupting the rhythm and order of pattern to create unique, tension filled pieces that question our ideas about perfection and control.

Benefield lives and works in Northern Ireland. His pieces are represented in private collections globally and are held in the permanent collections of the Museum of American Glass, Millville, USA, North Lands Creative Glass, Lybster, Scotland and the Museum of Glass, Tacoma, WA.

Exhibitions and further information

Tapestry Collection

Artist portrait by Conor Edgell.