"Art does not develop by itself. People change their ideas and consequently change the way they give expression to their ideas. I wanted to use my brush and paint as a means to delve deeper into man's soul and understand the world," Picasso.

While modern sculptors have cut off their creative pursuit of art from the human form, in order to examine three-dimensional shapes and volumes which have an internal logic and a consolidated structure, Edna Benes belongs to those artists who continue to occupy themselves with the figurative and to search for the essence of man as such. Benes creates bronze sculptures that evoke the sense of soft movements and graceful expressions but are in a precarious position and constant tension. These contrasts endow her works with the richness of formal representations.

"A sculptor deals first and foremost with mass and space embodied either in natural forms or in creations that originate a style of their own," Rogers. Benes's sculptures do not suggest strength but rather a set of balances and harmony stemming from the combination between matter and concept, which grants her artistic creation a free-flowing unity of form and expression.

"An artist should have something to say, because his task is not to control the form - the material, but to adapt it to the content - the spirit," Kandinsky. Benes's artistic impulse to create forms and images is inspired by her daily surrounding and by reality. The focal point of her art is women, who stand for serenity and restraint, yet react to social situations and processes and to current events. The personal-womanly factor in her work, from her perspective as wife and mother, has generated a dialogue with subjects such as: examination of the feminine identity; young women's desires; continuity and sensuality in pregnancy; harmony and conflicts in couple relationships, and the cycle of life.

Benes molds her figures in clay, kneading and fashioning them manually "like clay in the potter's hand". The clay sculptures, which give expression to her creative imagination, are then cast in bronze and colored in the soft shine of patina, granting her works endurance and a sense of structure and metallic texture. She is interested in the human figure and the emotional interest it arouses, in body language, and in the relationship between form and space as a visual representation and spatial perception.

According to Gardner, spatial intelligence is characterized by one's gift to translate visual impressions into symbols as well as by one's sensitivity to tension and balance apparent in nature and in objects of art.

As far as creative expression is concerned, "expression as I see it is not a matter of some emotion revealed in one's face or manifested in some energetic gesture. Expression is inherent in the overall essence, in the figures' posture, in the empty spaces around them and in the proportions - all these things contribute to expression," Matisse. This is true in Edna Benes's art: the formal motifs of her surfaces are external signs of the structure of her works and of their internal essence. Leaning to one side, the sculptured figures give an illusion of litheness. This contrast between tension and relaxation produces balance in the issue of gravity and breathes life into the works.

The figurative anatomy as a creative expression is translated in Benes's art into a set of balances and tensions between sculptural forms and textures. In order to appreciate their nature and significance, one has to view them from different angles. This close look from various viewpoints may offer the observer too a better perception of the work and an esthetic experience that connects to the human spirit.

Edna Benes is currently immersed in an intensive creative process and constant search. Her concern with the contemporary contains references to the past, evoking Dega's suppleness and esthetics and Rodin's social criticism.

Benes took education and history at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and philosophy and history at Haifa University. She studied sculpture under the artist Nira Raz, and painting in Raya Talmor's workshop and at Haifa University under Doron Bar-Adon. Being a creative person, she points out what teaching has in common with art: "When I worked as a teacher I taught my students patience and tolerance and respect for their fellow men. I have given expression to these qualities in my work. It is important for me to expose my frame of mind," Benes.

Edna Benes is a member of the Association of Painters and Sculptors in Israel. She had solo and group exhibitions at the Artists' House in Haifa and the Castra Art Center in Haifa. Her recent sculptures were exhibited by courtship of I.C.U at the Gérard Bachar Theater Center in Jerusalem during Israel Festival and in connection with Jerusalem Day 2004 festivities.