ABOUT BENJAMIN

Growing up in rural upstate New York, Benjamin fostered a curiosity about the world that shaped what his artistic practice has become today. For years, he worked as a commercial photographer. Lacking a sense of fulfillment in the commercial world, he began conceptualizing multi-layered projects that had roots in photography and incorporate alternative processes, painting and installation. Exploring elements of identity, culture, humanity, and reality; Benjamin’s work often portrays the familiar in a grandiose or fantastical way. He is an explorer, often creating different bodies of work that stem from his own journey towards enlightenment.

My work is an exploration into various themes centered around the idea of the self.  Contemporary culture plays an intricate role in the promotion of a great identity disparity.  On one hand, there is a zen-like approach of owning who we are.  Realizing our true self is the key to happiness.  On the other hand, we have a growth mentality.  Tenacity and dedication will transform us into who we’ve always strived to be.  Is the contemplation of our aspirations the divergence from our true self, or in fact the realization of it?  It was in this tension that my artistic practice was born.

In an effort to explore the boundaries between the self and the perceived self, and in effect the notion of reality itself,  I create work spanning various mediums.  The use of installation, painting, liquid emulsion, analog photography, and digital printing creates artwork inviting the viewer to introspect on their own understanding of reality.  I look at  individual photographs as building blocks for more comprehensive pieces of work, the way I use little fractions of reality and mold them into my own interpretation of the world.  Whether photographing a subject using multiple cropped in exposures and combining them into a whole after development, or painting on a blank sheet of artist paper and then applying a liquid emulsion so that an image may be developed overtop, all of my work gives up some element of control.  Pre-visualization in total becomes impossible and I am left with art based in reality, yet reconstructed through chance.

The art making process itself becomes an essential element to the final work.  My projects involve collecting images and elements over long periods of time.  These elements are often familiar yet reimagined and repurposed in a way that brings on new meanings and new connections to what we understand about the world.  I view the collection of these materials as their own unique journeys.  Once I have gone out into the world and amassed enough materials, I return home and allow the individual elements to dictate how they will be combined into the final works of art.  Inspired by the likes of Homer, Herman Hesse, Joseph Campbell, Paulo Coelho, and Robert M. Pirsig I oftentimes get lost in the art making process.  Grandiose epics and modern day quests plague my imagination. My only escape becomes envisioning the creative process as my own hero’s journey.  I look to the finished artwork at the end to provide some shroud of enlightenment.

ARTIST STATEMENT