ARTISTS

Ben Darrah
Disruptive Pattern
Feb 1 -  Feb 23   2008

Artist Statement
My work is grounded in the fundamentals and traditions of painting and drawing, while also embracing assemblage and construction. The subject of my work is both narrative and object, or objecthood.

My approach is an intuitive, playful exploration of elements. My choices reflect a curiosity in elevating an everyday, recognizable, common object or image to the status of scrutinized subject. Campfires, beaver lodges, lawn chairs, wood panelling, astro turf and postcard landscapes - not typically regarded as usual subjects of contemporary art, provide the introduction to my narrative.

The narrative is as much about the narrative itself, the path of associations, as it is about any end point or realization. I have become increasingly interested in how the meaning of images has shifted and become dislocated from an original meaning. I am concerned with this interstice of the human construct – the liminal space between how we perceive such things as landscape and other “natural” objects, and how we create faux objects/elements, such as wood panelling and camouflage pattern, to stand in place as a sort of referential shorthand. These objects retain aspects of the original significance, but there is also a sort of disjunction from the original as the significance shifts.

If there is an endpoint, or realization in these works, it is a self reflexive understanding. By becoming aware that there is a mediating construct one is better able to appreciate one’s individual and cultural perspective.