ARTIST INFORMATION

Benjamin Walker

My recent paintings are based on places I have visited – city parks,churchyards, woods. Within these landscapes I look for specific qualities such as fading light, autumnal colours, atmospheres, weathers, skylines, shapes. From photographs of these places I select particular features or aspects which I can use in the paintings. The translation of source material to painting involves a process of editing. The aspects chosen are simplified or condensed, reduced to silhouettes , shadowy patterns or recurring motifs, with unnecessary detail eliminated. I am not interested in making naturalistic copies of scenes but rather edited reconstructions, a sequence of layers recording atmosphere, ideas, light, tone, colour.

I use washes of thinned oil paint which are gradually built up. This allows me to make constant adjustments and alterations, to depart from early ideas and include new ones. Initially the subject is the main consideration but as the work progresses the application of paint, the variation of brush marks, and the surface become the main concern. Areas of the canvas are erased or obscured by scrubbing out with turps and are repainted again and again. The original imagery becomes clouded or emerges from layers of washes, glazes, drawn paint and impasto. As landscapes paintings they are about landscape experienced through time; a collection of references from a walk through woods or churchyards rather than a single view.

Education

2000 - 2001    MA Fine Art (Drawing)                                           Wimbledon School of Art
1994 - 1997    BA (Hons) Fine Art                                                 Sheffield Hallam University

Selected Exhibitions

2008                Cafe Gallery Projects Open                                Southwark, London
2008                Start Your Collection, C A Projects,                   London
2005                Writ Large, Greenheath Business Centre       Bethnal Green, London
2003 - 2008    Bow Arts Trust Open Studios                            Bow, London
2003                Mixed Show, Lacey Gallery                                 Putney, London
2003                Chairman's Choice, The Nunnery                    Bow, London
2002                Autumn Show, Hicks Gallery                             Wimbledon, London
2001 - 2002   Wimbledon Open Studios                                  Wimbledon, London
2001               Group Exhibition, Students Gallery                   Wimbledon, London

 

Residencies and Awards

2000 - 2001   AHRB Bursary                                                       Wimbledon School of Art
2008 - 2013   Live/Work Residency, Balfron Tower E14 Bow Arts Trust/Poplar HARCA

 

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