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Benjamin Keirn
Portfolio Artist Statement Online Information   13 Paddles To The Sea, 2009 Scavenged Wood from a Trip To Big Sur, Jan 26, 2009, Dimensions Vary   Over Pine Ridge: Wounded Knee, 2008 Mixed Media on Panel with Batten and Clamps, 48"x45"x5"  Pale Blue Ocean Views, 2009 Wood, Paint, Fire and Battens, Bow to Stern 71" each  My recent body of work is titled "Collected Distance: A Methodological Process" and is a visual narrative of the journey of the artist as traveler. Through the act of travel, the artist removes not only the physical self from the familiarities of his known world in order to collect experiences but also removes extraneous characteristics from his sense of self through this mobility. Once stripped of self-defining traits, the artist as traveler is free to objectively view and undergo the journey in a pure state of mind. The landscapes through which he moves are assimilated in his vision as quick-stitched panoramas, fleeting glimpses of places that coalesce into collections of memory and distance.
Upon returning to the studio, the artist recalls the transitory states of progressive movement and attaches meaning by way of metaphorical representations of the physical journey. He then sets out on another type of journey, one of creation. The panoramas within which he had been enveloped now find being through symbolic constructions. Injecting the work with a sense of nostalgia through a search for authenticity, the artist applies repetitive filters that attempt to portray the artist's hand in the work. With the aid of maps, land/seascape references and fire, this body of work is constructed with the boat/vessel form and subsequent nautical references that exist as facilitators of mobility directly referencing the artist as traveler moving about within the world. |
