What is that? A good question. When somebody is looking at artwork, this question is probably at the top of everybody’s list when they see a piece of artwork, particularly when it is not quite clear exactly what they are looking at. Abstract art come to mind. I am actually quite a fan of abstract art and I like to incorporate elements of abstraction into my work even if my work is not exactly abstract as a whole. Answering the question ‘What is that?’ for my work is something I will take a look at here analyzing my influences, subject matter and what I was thinking while I made my art.

For starters, I will take you back in time to my youth. As a boy, I started drawing, mostly monsters, robots, tanks, soldiers and battles. One subject in particular I drew was Ro-beasts. I would draw them and bring them to school to kids in my class who were pretty excited to see the latest one I would bring in. Ro-beasts were the monsters that went up against Voltron in every TV episode and by the end of each episode Voltron would usually slice the Ro-beast in half with his giant sword. I think the Ro-beasts for me were the best part of the Voltron show. They were so cool man! This is just an example of some of the creatures I would draw but there were plenty of other monsters as well.

Ro-beast from Voltron — Ro-Beast from Voltron.

During 4th through maybe 6th grade I vividly remember my neighbor Dan whose mom would let him rent VHS from the local video store. He would always rent the scariest horror movies available so me and my brother would go to his house and watch them with him. We watched Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, Alligator, The Reanimator - Holy crap, that movie is still insane, to think I watched that as a kid! Also and finally the one that scared me to death, House by the Cemetery. On a side note I also remember seeing Horror Express at a birthday party when I was in 1st or 2nd grade that had me up for nights being scared zombies would break down my door and get me. I believe these viewings pretty much cemented my love of horror and the macabre at a very young age. Clearly mom had no idea we were watching these movies haha.

Being scared and witnessing terror is a thrill. It is exciting. It can be fun as you know you are not in any real danger but the character involved with the horror is involved in horrifying circumstances. It is hard to say exactly why it is fascinating to humans, but I guess you can trace it way back through history. People watched executions in medieval times which is not exactly something I want to do, I want people to be safe, but obviously we can see there has always been that human curiosity in dark things. The fact that people go to visit torture chambers in the dungeons of castles and have their kids stick their heads in the guillotine for pictures says it all.

I also very much enjoy science fiction media - video games, books, comics, movies, and TV. I am currently reading through the Dune series and have read many other sci-fi books. To combine, particularly sci-fi horror is a genre I always want more of - see Event Horizon, Alien and Deadspace!!!

The one thing that has really cemented my devotion to horror and science fiction though has to be the many volumes of stories by H.P. Lovecraft through his Cthulhu mythos and all that it encompasses. H.P. Lovecraft was an author from the early 20th century who built a whole world based on weird cosmic entities from other dimensions, space demons, witches, fish people, cults and the like. Each story he wrote fits into this universe and he frequently connects his stories together with the same locations, characters and lore. He is pretty much the king of modern day horror as we know it. I like to fancy that my work mirrors with the worlds he has built. I am even world building a comic myself that gives homage to his work. Currently I am about 85% through reading all of what he has written in a giant anthology of his work and every story I read gives me more ideas for my own projects. His work more than anyone else has given me ideas and enthusiasm for what I do.

Cthulhu - from the H.P. Lovecraft universe. — Cthulhu.

Going back to my art, the illustrations I did for my Braptizm shows and the Trusik label obviously pay homage to Lovecraft and horror as a whole. There is a delight and a longing for me to present the world I create in my frames as a weird, strange, or mythical place. We can also carry this over to my latest pencil drawings which are really just landscapes with no characters at all but the landscape has that fantastic and other worldly feeling I am searching for. Again, in the back of my head, horror and the macabre have an influence even if it is not necessarily up front and in your face.

Finally I have to talk about my Fantastical Roots series. All the horror still has an influence here but it is much more subtle. I still find a horror influence even just looking at trees. Trees become monsters, roots become tentacles, holes become eyes, arms form, heads appear. I make it happen when I draw it out.

I like to go on hikes in the woods. One day I saw in a local park near me a giant upturned tree root that had fallen just off the pathway. It was really fascinating to look at. What I saw were amazing tentacle like squid and octopus roots. It got me thinking. I had just started reading H.P. Lovecraft and something clicked in association. Lovecraft’s monsters typically had tentacles and were beyond terrifying to look at. Here was my opportunity to connect my art to the Lovecraft world in a way. I decided I would draw roots, though I never did draw that particular one in that park.

When coming up with the concept, I wanted to draw something that would straddle the line between monsters and the trees in reality. I wanted a cross between fine art and illustration. It would be a subtle representation that would convey my monster without actually directly being a monster. This was it. It was not until I finished my attempted walk across half of Pennsylvania that I actually drew my first root piece - Banoch. I sat down and drew what looked like a monster from a root I had found along the trail. (This event is a story in itself which I will cover in a later post.)

To bring it all back, What is that? I hope you are asking this question when you see my work. I hope you will explore the world I have made and find all the elements I have worked into them. I have easter eggs and imagery hiding throughout my pieces. I hope you will explore them. I want the question What is that? answered by my audience, in their own words, finding and deciding what it is they see. Develop your own story to what I have put down on paper. What is that? You decide.

Ben

Deciphering and explaining my art to an audience

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