BY KAREN BOSSICK

Sun Valley was Sally King Benedict’s childhood playground, as her family journeyed here from Atlanta, Ga., regularly to ski and hike. Early on, she decided she one day wanted to live here fulltime, and she and her husband and their three sons made it happen two years ago.

Benedict plunged into Sun Valley’s outdoor lifestyle and, as she did, it began popping up in her colorful  artwork. She will show some of those works inspired by a Big Wood fisherman, Sun Valley skiers and Shoshone-Bannock taking part in the annual Wagon Days Parade in her “Recreation” exhibition at Hemmings Gallery, 340 Walnut Ave., in Ketchum.

Benedict will greet visitors during Gallery Walk from 5 to 7:30 p.m. Friday, July 7. The exhibition will run through August.

“We had such a different lifestyle in Atlanta. Here, recreation is paramount,” she said. “It’s a place where you get up and work, then go ski for an hour before returning to work. I have come to realize that the ways I now recreate have, in fact, re-created me.”

Benedict got her start with features in publications like “Hose Beautiful” and “Southern Living.” encouraged to go solo,

Benedict’s mother was an art collector and seller so she grew up going to art parties where, she said, the artists and collectors were a little bit funky, a little bit rebellious—“not super buttoned-up at all.”

“My parents saw I had a knack for art when I was little and nurtured that. There was always space in the house for me to create, and I was always taking afterschool art classes. I liked to put together pieces of glass to make a sculpture to thank a teacher. I always wanted to do something unique to show my appreciation to someone.”

Following college in Charleston, S.C., Benedict worked in interior design, the fashion world and for a framing gallery. Encouraged to go solo, she put together a portfolio and went knocking on gallery doors.

“I felt very vulnerable. It was very hard because I was told “No” 99.91 percent of time. But I had my first show with designers I’d worked for and things began opening up for me.”

Benedict has opened a studio in artist Christine Warjone’s former studio in Ketchum’s light industrial district. And she uses every inch of the 2,000-square-foot building, staking one nook out for clients and  friends and family, setting aside another for office space and using the rest for painting.

She does much of her work painting on the floor.

“This is my workout—it gets very physical,” said Benedict, who gets into the rhythm of painting by listening to every genre of music from jazz to country. “I feel like I’m sculpturing in 2D, with the music driving my mood.”

Inherent in Benedict’s works are abstract portraits, a throwback to the self-portraits and figure painting she did so much of in college. Her landscapes are abstracts, as well.

“They’re people I want to know, places I want to go,” she said. “I don’t say too much about them in hopes that people will pull their own stories out of my paintings.”

Settling in Sun Valley was a pipe dream come true.

“We like the local presence. It’s not so much a resort town. It feels more like it was built for and run by people who live here,” she said. “The way the landscape is here you have room to breathe, and we like the variety of landscapes that abounds.”

Life is what’s in front of her and what’s in front of her eventually ends up on canvas. Benedict got the idea for the focal point of her “Recreation” exhibition from watching skiers taking part in the 2023 Janss Pro-Am fundraiser congregate in her studio over cocktails.

“It was a flood of colors and costumes. And everyone was so fun and free and loose. I love how everyone’s so humble. Even those who are former Olympians or World Cup skiers don’t take themselves seriously.”

Another painting was inspired by the trip she and her three young sons take to the skate park where they watch kids on their boards and scooters.

“I love the independence my sons have to go biking here, to walk to school. And I’m also amazed by the way families do things together here—they ski together, they bike together.”

Benedict can’t wait to see where life in Sun Valley takes her art.

“There’s so much to learn because it’s so different from growing up in the South.”