(1960) Zdeněk Janošec Benda is a self-taught artist. He works on the basis of his own intuition and certain mystical tendencies. His paintings feature bizarre animals and beings in phantasmagorical forest landscapes. They often concern primordial and fundamental themes of human existence. His oeuvre is existential and results from an instinctive need to create and communicate through his works. His paintings are authentic and free of tendentious signs and manners, probably because he is unburdened by an official artistic education. He was a founding member of the Přirození group, where he encountered other leading representatives of the Ostrava art scene, such as Daniel Balabán, Hana Puchová, Petr Pastrňák and Jiří Surůvka.