Baltimore artist Madeleine Benavent will bring a body of work shaped by travel, portraiture and life at sea to Hampden this September with a showcase exhibition at Baltimore Art Gallery.

The gallery will host the opening of Madeleine Benavent’s Showcase Exhibit on Friday, September 4, from 5 to 8 p.m. at Baltimore Art Gallery, 855 W. 36th Street in Baltimore. The event is part of First Friday festivities and will give visitors an opportunity to meet Benavent, view her work and hear firsthand about the unusual circumstances under which many of her paintings have been created.

A Baltimore native, Benavent has developed an artistic career that has taken her far beyond the city while continuing to influence the work she brings home.

Benavent graduated from the College of Wooster in 2013 with a bachelor’s degree in Studio Art. During an advanced drawing course under Professor Marina Mangubi, she began developing what would become her primary artistic passion: painting in acrylics.

Her early professional life followed a more traditional path. Benavent worked full-time as a high school art teacher in Baltimore, but even then, her lifestyle was anything but conventional. She lived aboard a boat while teaching, combining her career as an educator with a growing connection to the water.

That relationship with the sea ultimately transformed both her life and her artistic practice.

In 2016, Benavent and her husband set sail, beginning a nomadic lifestyle that would take them across the Atlantic Ocean and throughout the Mediterranean. Rather than putting her artwork aside while traveling, Benavent turned the changing environments around her into an extension of her studio.

She continued painting aboard the boat, developing portraiture while experiencing new landscapes, cultures, people and wildlife around the world.

The result is a body of work characterized by vibrant color and expressive interpretations of human and animal subjects. Benavent primarily works with layered acrylic paint on canvas board, building depth and personality through color, texture and careful observation.

Her unconventional lifestyle also helped introduce her work to a broader audience. Many clients who later commissioned custom portraits first encountered Benavent through Rigging Doctor, the YouTube channel documenting the couple’s sailing experiences. The platform provided viewers with a window into both their travels and the unusual reality of maintaining a creative career while crossing oceans.

The upcoming Baltimore exhibition offers Benavent an opportunity to reconnect that international journey with the city where her story began.

During the September 4 opening, guests will be able to enjoy refreshments, meet the artist and learn more about what it means to create paintings while living and traveling aboard a sailboat. The evening also provides an opportunity to experience Hampden, one of Baltimore’s best-known neighborhoods for independent businesses, galleries, restaurants and creative culture.

The showcase reflects how an artistic practice can continue evolving far beyond the walls of a traditional studio. For Benavent, the Atlantic, the Mediterranean and the many destinations encountered along the way became part of both the journey and the creative process.

Now, those experiences are returning to Baltimore through paintings that connect her hometown roots with years of exploration abroad.

Madeleine Benavent’s Showcase Exhibit opens Friday, September 4, from 5 to 8 p.m. at Baltimore Art Gallery, 855 W. 36th Street in Baltimore. The exhibition will remain on view through October 1, 2026.