Ben with his paintings
In a further interview with Bored Panda, Ben shared more about his background.
“I taught myself how to paint whilst at university from various books and old scriptures written in the 1500s. Once I had learned the basic rules of painting, like an apprentice might, I then went about incrementally breaking those rules and subverting the things that I had learned.”
Regarding the inspiration behind mixing classic portrait painting with modern distortion, Ben shared: “I think initially, I wanted to show the cyclical nature of history, how humanity is able to make the same mistakes over and over again. Historical portraiture gave me the ideal vehicle to express this as the history of portraiture spans the history of humanity itself. The protagonists in my paintings are often antiheroes who would like to convey notions of wealth and status but due to the interruptions have been made to look ridiculous. In using these modern methods of distortion I wish to subvert the original message historical portraiture wishes to convey.”
We were wondering which of the Old Masters Ben would be interested in collaborating with and why.
He replied: “I'm not sure whether I would necessarily like to collaborate with any of the masters but I would certainly love to meet a few of them just to observe. I would like to watch Hans Holbein and Albrecht Durer’s drawing process, both have very different styles of working and I tend to rate their drawings more than their finished paintings. I would love to watch Da Vinci’s workshop in progress, to observe the way in which he used his notebooks, and to sit in on the various conversations he would have with mathematicians and engineers. Finally, I would love to go out drinking with Caravaggio after finishing one of his commissions, that would be a wild night.”
Lastly, Ben added: “I’ve got my next solo show coming up, titled ‘Or You Could Panic’, in LA at the Corey Helford gallery. The show opens March 15 and will run for a month, I would love to see you there.”
