The use of gravity and her body in the latex pours invoked Jackson Pollock’s process, a connection immortalized in the Februedition of Life magazine, which featured Benglis at work.Ĭoncurrently, she began working with pigmented polyurethane foam, building the volume of her sculptures vertically by pouring the oozing, lava-like forms against walls and in the corners of spaces or over constructed armatures and chicken wire, which she removed after the wall mounted foam pours solidified. The impulse to see these forms flow beyond the structure of a traditional support led Benglis to embrace pigmented latex, which she began pouring directly onto the floor. Her wax paintings, which began with brushed skin-like layers of pigmented beeswax and dammar resin progressed, in one series, to the use of a blowtorch as a kind of brush, manipulating colors into a marbleized surface that seemingly fought against the constraints of the lozenge-shaped Masonite panels.
She initiated several bodies of work in the late 60s and early 70s that set the course for her subsequent practice. Benglis began her career in the midst of the Postminimal movement, pushing the traditions of painting and sculpture into new territories.