Artist, lecturer, stand-up comedian, musician

Benni Esposito was a man of many parts: an excellent artist with a very promising career ahead of him; a popular and capable lecturer at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art; a successful comedian and compère; and a musician from a young age. What was unusual about Benni's efforts in these different fields was that he brought an intensity and clarity of purpose to each one.

Carnoustie

Benni lived in London until the age of four, and for the rest of his childhood was raised in Carnoustie, in Angus, with his older sister Sharon and younger brother Martin.

From an early age he stood out as a naturally gifted artist, winning prizes at primary school; at about ten his teachers helped him onto a part-time course at Duncan of Jordanstone. At Carnoustie High School he formed a controversial punk band with friends, the start of the musical side of his life. His teachers found him irreverent and non-conformist, though never confrontational. He was a natural showman: he compèred the school's own production of Blind Date.

Between 1989 and 1991 he studied at Dundee College, then spent a frustrating year out of education that strengthened his resolve to go to art college. A fruitful year at Arbroath College followed. He would only go to Duncan of Jordanstone, he said, when he felt ready: a clear-sightedness rare in a 22-year-old.

Art college and Broccoli

In 1993 Benni began the General Course at Duncan of Jordanstone and threw himself into student life. That year he also joined Broccoli on bass. Not the most supple of bass players, he brought the band flamboyance on stage and real organising flair behind the scenes. One of his trademark endings to a gig was a somersault off the stage. Over the next four years Broccoli toured the UK, Ireland, Europe and Japan, where his lack of reserve charmed nearly everyone he met.

In 1995 he took a year out to be President of the college's Students' Association, and turned it into a profitable enterprise for the first time in years. Rather than go back to college he toured with Broccoli, and resumed his studies in 1997, when he began to explore oil painting seriously. In 1999 he graduated with First Class Honours in Fine Art (Drawing and Painting) and won the James Guthrie Orchar Travelling Scholarship. His degree show began a successful career as a figurative oil painter.

Ben D'Arcy

Through the nineties Benni went to stand-up nights meaning to become a comedian himself. He did his first gig in 1997 and quickly made his name in Dundee and Edinburgh, performing as Ben D'Arcy in the tightly tailored mod suits he loved. His material was iconoclastic and often controversial. In 2000 he co-wrote and performed "The Road from Dundee", an irreverently honest look at the City of Discovery, at the Edinburgh Fringe. He also wrote for Channel 4's "The 11 O'Clock Show" and appeared on television and radio as a reviewer, commentator and performer.

Painter and teacher

In 2001 he returned to Dundee to take a Master of Fine Art at Duncan of Jordanstone, and began teaching evening classes there in portraiture and life drawing. The next year his solo show "Toasting the End of Europe" opened at the Park Gallery in Falkirk, and he began to wind down the comedy. In 2003 he stopped performing and began lecturing on the college's Drawing Programme, which he led in partnership with another artist while carrying on as a painter. As a teacher he was charismatic and technically astute. In his last months he was painting towards a solo exhibition, due to open in Shetland in September 2005.

The man

Benni's range was vast. He was at ease in conversation that could take in anything from the Vermeer forger Han van Meegeren to David Hasselhoff, from contemporary Scottish dance to the inappropriateness of "On the Buses". He believed in enquiry without constraint and discussion without boundaries. His wit could be intimidating, yet he was fiercely loyal to his friends, and they made up a considerable chunk of Scottish culture: dancers, musicians, artists, film makers, comedians and writers.

Benni passed away suddenly in Dundee in January 2005, at just 33. He is missed most of all by his family, Elizabeth, Sharon and Martin, and by the many friends who still tell his stories. Dundee, and Scotland, are poorer without him.

In his own words

For me, painting is an empirical form of investigation. I want my paintings to be romantic and seductive, but at the same time resonate a more cynical message about the illusion of romance and the historically transient nature of ideals.