About Me:
Ben grew up in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania where he currently resides with his wife Liza and son Vlad. As a kid Ben drew a lot of monsters, creatures and fantasy/science fiction imagery. As he grew older, he developed his skills, took art classes and eventually decided on going to art school at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, Maryland graduating with a BFA in general fine arts where he focused mostly on drawing and painting. This is where Ben started to really develop his pencil drawing techniques. Later on, he went to Full Sail Real World Education in Orlando, Florida graduating with an Associates in film and video production. Soon after that he produced, filmed, directed, edited and sold a documentary, Massanutten: 2 Runners, 100 Miles – about the Massanutten 100 mile ultra-marathon held every year in the mountains of Virginia.
From 2004 to 2020 he worked as an AutoCAD technician. After leaving this job, Ben decided to take a serious stab at doing art as a career for which he is currently ramping up production of new work. Ben developed his pen and ink skills doing various projects for music event flyers and posters including 3 vinyl album releases for the Trusik dubstep label. Throughout this period Ben also continued with works in pencil.
Most recently, Ben’s work has been mostly fine art, focused on pen and ink work, with subject matter revolving around very detailed compositions of roots, trees and forest landscapes as well as a few urban landscape pencil drawings.
Ben looks forward to continuing to explore pencil and pen and ink and also exploring graphic storytelling, illustrative works, computer graphics, painting, landscapes, and fantasy.
Artist Statement:
Ben has always been excited by fantasy, science fiction, and horror – particularly beasts, monsters, spirits and creatures. With love of the outdoors, nature, architecture and exploring, it is no surprise that his work reflects these interests, incorporating them into his work by exploring new places, hiking, and absorbing media – books, music, movies, Youtube and podcasts to find inspiration for his art. Constantly indulging his inspiration to set the narrative he wants to see in his projects, searching for that “feeling” for his asthetic. Inspiration can come from a lonely shed on an abandoned lot, a dusty trash strewn street, a cold winter day, the desolation of an abandoned building, an unusual tree shaped like an octopus, a trail through the forest with fantastic rock formations, a movie or a good book or comic. The aesthetic might be a dark in tone, lonely, creepy, maybe even terrifying or melancholy. He likes to think of his work in terms of world building, creating a dreamscape, a sliver of a parallel dimensional rift showing our world but through a different lens.
The Path series, is a set of 4 x 12” pen and ink drawings, with specific imagery taken from his hikes in Pennsylvania’s wooded trails. Scenes are captured from Swatara State Park, The Appalachain Trail, Cook State Forest and the Poconos. The imagery is meant to engage the viewer for a closer look as the shadows, rocks, branchs, roots and composition plays the eye.
With the Fantastical Roots pen and ink series, there is a subtlety not clearly defined as fantastic. When drawing roots and trees, there is imagery of beasts and creatures lurking within the art’s final transformation. The completed work is a loosely defined rendition of a creature that merely suggests life and limbs. He is not interested in capturing photo-realism, but rather to use the subject as a base to fill in the blanks for creating something new, to capture the asthetic he is pursuing.
The pencil / mixed media also has similar goals in regards to imagery – the subtlety of definition and fantastic elements throughout - lurking just out of a view’s reach. No photo-realism, but expressive tendencies toward the melancholy. These are warped in parallel dimensions not quite of this earth but somewhere else. There is just enough of a color palette using colored pencil or wax crayon so that the image feels decayed or abandoned – an empty place. These elements add to the “feeling” and asthetic he is searching for within.
Exhibitions and Awards:
“Winter Tubs in the Forest” - Art of the State 2023, Harrisburg, PA, October, 2023
“Itollynyth” - DRAWN 2023, Manifest Gallery, Cincinnati, Ohio, May, 2023
AAH solo show at Capital Blue Cross Wellness Centre, Harrisburg, PA, April, 2023
AAH solo show at Martin M. Sacks & Associates, Harrisburg, PA, December, 2022
“Harollynyth” - Small Works, Main Street Arts, Clifton Springs, NY, November, 2022
“Seafood and Eat” - Strange Figurations, Limner Gallery, Hudson, NY, November, 2022
“Watcher in the Woods” - Best in show - 5th Annual Open Juried Exhibition, York Art Association, October, 2022
Hershey Hummelstown Art Studio Tour, October, 2022
“Tomer and Asofel” - Best in show / 1st place drawing category - 8th Annual Juried Show Perry County Council of the Arts, September, 2022
“Here Long Ago” - Phoebe Berks Excellence Award for drawing - Berks Art Alliance 43rd Annual Open Juried Art Exhibition, September, 2022
“The Way Back” - 1st Place in pastels and drawing category - “Free for all” Student-Member Exhibition at the Harrisburg Art Association, July 2022