Benjamin Duke

Home Again, Home Again, Urban Setting with Female, Umbrella & Taxi Cab, Original

2014

Victor Wang's highly textured paintings involve thick layers of paint over collaged images from the Tang Dynasty. In "Let Her Go", the foreground shows a modern female figure sitting upon the side of a boat which gives the impression she is wearing wings and about to take flight. Upon closer look, there are various scenes taking place around her in the water - warriors with knives drawn, a jeep in pursuit of some unseen enemy, a cauldron boiling over. Influence by the Renaissance Masters, Titian and Rembrandt for their glazing and layering techniques respectively, the artist builds the surface using heavy paint, swirling and mixing the color on the canvas. The end result is a poetic and emotionally powerful representation of the human form. Victor Wang Let Her Go oil on canvas 48h x 60w in 121.92h x 152.40w cm VWG011 My path through life has been adventurous, exciting, and dream-like. My experience of settling into America in search of better opportunities has been both challenging and inspiring. I use the human face as a vehicle to paint human experiences - worry and wonder, sadness and pleasure - which reflect the emotional stage directly tied to my immigration experiences. I grew up amongst the sunflower fields in northern China. In my childhood years, I played under the bright, yellow sunflowers with my brothers everyday. China’s Cultural Revolution played an important part in my life. During that time, sunflowers were used as political allegories to depict how citizens of China should follow Mao who represented the sun, since sunflowers follow the sun’s movements. People eventually inferred the deception that this symbol masked. After graduating from high school, I was sent to a labor camp in the country for ‘reeducation’ during China’s Cultural Revolution. There, I was subject to grueling farm work. Often, I worked in corn and sunflower fields from sunrise to sunset. Thus, for me, sunflowers evoke both personal joy and sadness. Therefore, to deliver my complex feelings, I use sunflowers as a metaphor to connote my background and emotional stage. My incorporation of collages of figures from China’s Tang Dynasty represents my Chinese heritage and is a constant reminder of where I came from. The texture and earthiness on the canvas’s surface are inspired by the texture of the soil on the farm where I worked in China. Although I often gain great pleasure from the process of painting, it is most important to unfold expressively those feelings within myself. Wang belongs to a generation of immigrant painters from China, whose artistic background was defined by socialist realism but took advantage of their skills and broke away from that tradition to create new subjects in the U.S. “When I was a student during Cultural Revolution, Soviet realism art was among the dominant source of influence and it grabbed us like lightening...

Victor Wang's subject is a female seemingly caught in a contemplative moment yet a war rages behind her. She dons a hat shaped as a boat and carries and oar as if to "Dream Away" these other thoughts. Wang uses a blend of luminous colors and buttery textures to evoke these enigmatic moments of meditation. Influence by the Renaissance Masters Titian and Rembrandt for their glazing and layering techniques respectively, the artist builds the surface using heavy paint, swirling and mixing the color on the canvas. The end result is a poetic and emotionally powerful representation of the human form. Victor Wang Dreaming Away, 2017 oil on canvas 42h x 56w in 106.68h x 142.24w cm VWG009 My path through life has been adventurous, exciting, and dream-like. My experience of settling into America in search of better opportunities has been both challenging and inspiring. I use the human face as a vehicle to paint human experiences - worry and wonder, sadness and pleasure - which reflect the emotional stage directly tied to my immigration experiences. I grew up amongst the sunflower fields in northern China. In my childhood years, I played under the bright, yellow sunflowers with my brothers everyday. China’s Cultural Revolution played an important part in my life. During that time, sunflowers were used as political allegories to depict how citizens of China should follow Mao who represented the sun, since sunflowers follow the sun’s movements. People eventually inferred the deception that this symbol masked. After graduating from high school, I was sent to a labor camp in the country for ‘reeducation’ during China’s Cultural Revolution. There, I was subject to grueling farm work. Often, I worked in corn and sunflower fields from sunrise to sunset. Thus, for me, sunflowers evoke both personal joy and sadness. Therefore, to deliver my complex feelings, I use sunflowers as a metaphor to connote my background and emotional stage. My incorporation of collages of figures from China’s Tang Dynasty represents my Chinese heritage and is a constant reminder of where I came from. The texture and earthiness on the canvas’s surface are inspired by the texture of the soil on the farm where I worked in China. Although I often gain great pleasure from the process of painting, it is most important to unfold expressively those feelings within myself. Wang belongs to a generation of immigrant painters from China, whose artistic background was defined by socialist realism but took advantage of their skills and broke away from that tradition to create new subjects in the U.S. “When I was a student during Cultural Revolution, Soviet realism art was among the dominant source of influence and it grabbed us like lightening rod...

Andrew LeMay Cox "Love Nest" - Overgrown fields of amber grain freckled with flowers of many. On a perfectly sunny day and the wind is strong but gentle. There is no one else in s...

Andrew LeMay Cox Ink Painting Statement Within these works the exploration of visual storytelling and construction propose challenging questions to the traditions of academic painting. Two components that influence these painting practices are process and narrative. The function of materiality within these works attempts to question traditional methods of paint on canvas. They are constructed using ink that is baked at high temperatures and is assembled by painting on skins. The skins hang loosely from the stretcher and add sculptural properties to 2-dimensional surfaces. The other component is to create an aesthetic narrative that allows the viewer to escape their reality and get lost in themes outside civilizations normality’s. These characters occupy a utopian landscape outside the realms of race, religion, or politics. They ignore social or economic concerns. They are ageless and serendipitous. They sing, dance and make love without cause, limitation or destination. CV Education 2007-2011 School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Bachelor of Fine Arts Exhibitions 2017 Let Your Thoughts Flies Away, Group Show, Chicago, IL 2016 Pop-Lore, Jan Brandt Gallery, Bloomington, IL 2016 Love Spells, Linda Warren Projects, Chicago, IL 2014 Unfiltered, Filtered Warehouse, Chicago, IL 2013 Revolving Artist’s showcase, Gold Star, Chicago, IL 2013 Group Show The Squeeze, Chicago, IL 2012 Group Show, Space Camp Headquarters/Grey Ghost...

Marcos Raya The Anguish of Being and the Nothingness of the Universe, 2000 acrylic on canvas 72h x 72w in 182.88h x 182.88w cm MSR093 Marcos Raya's work is heavily influenced by Mex...

Ben Duke Cake oil on canvas 36h x 38w in 91.44h x 96.52w cm BSD036 Ben Duke b. 1977 Louisville, KY Education 2006 M.F.A., Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD 2002 B....

Artist: Leslie Bostrom Title: In Spite of Everything Medium: Mixed Media on Canvas and Plywood Size: 110 x 140 inches Year: 2017 Leslie Bostrom is a Professor of Art at Brown Univer...

Neeka Allsup was born in the back of her parent's toy store by home birth in Austin, Texas. Being an artist was encouraged from a young age, and she spent he...

MASKED DOLL AND GAMES A "Color Virtuoso" Between East and West... Yasemin Şenel at Beyoğlu Gallery G-art after many years with "Masked Doll and Games" Art critic Sezer Tansuğ d...

MASKED DOLL AND GAMES A "Color Virtuoso" Between East and West... Yasemin Şenel at Beyoğlu Gallery G-art after many years with "Masked Doll and Games" Art critic Sezer Tansuğ d...

Urbex is the English acronym for urban exploration and is an activity that consists of searching for and locating abandoned infrastructure with the goal of visiting, photographing and conveying its contents, with particular involvement of methodologies from geography, anthropology, sociology to cultural studies. Her works have been in the past approached to the works of Anselm Kiefer (b. 1945) and Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1770), but in Gullotta's paintings the absence of color makes the spaces particularly ethereal, allowing them to be ideally lifted to new places and to new life. An artist of international caliber who has decided to entrust her return to her homeland to Almach Art Gallery in Milan, while maintaining connections with important galleries, such as Marlborough Fine Art in London and Galerie Koch in Hanover. The artwork represents the famous Velasca Tower in Milan. This artwork was exhibited during the Daniela Gullotta...

Urbex is the English acronym for urban exploration and is an activity that consists of searching for and locating abandoned infrastructure with the goal of visiting, photographing an...