1st place: Ben Marxen | painting/new media
Ben Marxen's paintings paintings evoke movement, energy and optomism. By marrying traditional painting techniques with new media technology, he has created a patented artistic language all his own that embraces the future while being rooted in tradition.
Describe your earliest beginnings as an artist.
I have vivid memories as a 4-year-old drawing inside the covers of my children's books. We didn't have much money and white paper was in short supply, so I found blank sheets of paper of any kind to be very appealing. Around that time, my parents noticed I had a natural ability to capture details that my older siblings did not. I was also very lucky to benefit from a great school that provided me with additional art courses designed to further develop my artistic skills. This special attention proved to be an essential part of establishing a solid foundation to build from. At the age of 12, I enrolled in my first college art course and things just took off from there.
What was a defining moment in your early development as an artist?
By the time I was 13, I set out to capture my teachers' and classmates' likenesses on paper. I can still remember the exhilaration I felt when I finally accomplished this goal. It was as if I had awakened one morning and discovered I had super powers. This eventually led to a series of comic books depicting not so flattering caricatures of individuals I didn't approve of. It provided a great sense of empowerment for me and immediately elevated my social status among my peers. It was that year that really began to see the power and influence art can have on people.
Describe your driving force or motivation to create artwork.
The act of making art gives my life meaning.
How do you grow and further challenge yourself as an artist?
My method is not much different than that of a student. I try to keep learning and growing as an artist by absorbing whatever new ideas and theories spring up. This includes not only dealing with matters of art, but also psychology, mathematics, physics, and technology. It's important to me to get out of the studio and visit museums, galleries, performances, or whatever that might inspire me to push my work in a direction I may not otherwise have realized. The most beneficial thing I acquired from my years as a student was how I learned to keep learning on my own.
What inspires you?
Originality, courage, great acts of humanity, master technicians, going against the grain and anything punk rock.
How did you arrive at this unique and tech-savvy process of marrying traditional art technique (painting) with new media (video)?
I have always considered myself a painter, and it wasn't until about 5 years ago that I decided to break away from the usual oil on canvas to explore new avenues that expand the great tradition of painting. At that time I was working as a graphic designer with what seemed to be limitless access to the latest commercial software and technology. I also had a great fondness for animation and learned valuable techniques while in college. It was then that I decided combine my 3 disciplines and come up with a new style of painting that was not only original but made sense and was meaningful.
What appeals to you about combining these two very different media?
I think that one of the main objectives for most artists is to develop their own unique voice or style that separates them from the pack. And, for me, the appropriation of technology was the most logical step. After all, technology is expanding at such a rapid pace that it's a great source for new ideas and provides an extremely useful tool in which to bring my vision to fruition. And what is more exciting than the successful union between the traditional and the modern?
Would you ever consider being strictly a traditional painter or a solely a video/new media artist?
At the moment, no. There are so many challenges and ideas that I have yet to explore and expand upon that I can't see myself ever growing exhausted with what I'm trying to accomplish.
You describe your artwork as an "active action painting". Since action painting in the traditional sense involves a large element of randomness, what is the random element/s in your paintings when you have the ability to video edit them to produce the end result?
When I describe my work as an "active action painting," I mean it in a more literal sense. One of the popular subjects of modern art has been the attempt to portray implied movement within a stagnant composition. Through the use of technology I have successfully introduced actual movement on the surface of the painting without any external projections. All the components are self-contained and embedded inside the work of art itself.
Maybe it's the innovative combination of traditional painting with forward-thinking new media technology, your bright color palette or the euphoric feeling of perpetual motion in your paintings. But I would best describe your paintings as "optimistic" (like how the discovery of atomic energy influenced post war abstract expressionists). What inherent feelings do you wish to convey in your pieces?
I think that there are many different psychological layers and ways a viewer could interpret my work. For example: the regeneration–degeneration aspects of the looped video, depicting the painting process which serves as a metaphor for the many different art, scientific, political, religious, and philosophical movements of the modern age. Also, to re-examine the status quo by dissecting it piece by piece to see what can be learned by it. I think it's instinctual for younger generations to want to tear down the establishment and rebuild it to their own liking. I also feel there is a direct correlation between the moving aspects of my painting and that of the fast paced speed of this age of information we live in (e.g. e-mail, instant messaging, the internet, satellite television, cell phones, etc.). The viewer is able to experience the painting process in a matter of seconds, as opposed to the weeks or months it may take me to actually paint the subject.
Since there is a strong digital aspect to your artwork, it seems like it would be tailor-made for display on the web. Have you ever had an online exhibition of your artwork? Do you feel that new media is a good vehicle for artists in general?
The internet provides a great tool to communicate the gist of what I'm trying to accomplish, but at the same time it's only a virtual simulation. I have participated in a number of online exhibitions and found it an invaluable tool that can reach a far greater audience and increase artist exposure. I also developed a website that contains video clips of my work which is far more advantageous than sending slides or reproductions. Of course, to truly experience my paintings I would prefer that the viewer see the work live.
What would you want a viewer to learn or take away from after experiencing your artwork?
The most obvious is to inform the viewer of the painting process through the use of time lapse video (i.e. to experience the physical act of building a painted image). It is also my hope that the viewer would experience painting in a fresh, new and exciting way, to put an end to the argument that painting is dead, and to prove that there is still a great many unexplored and exciting possibilities this medium has to offer.
What new artwork/s are you currently working on?
I am extremely excited about my current body of work. I recently broke out of my Euclidean prison and moved from a flat 2-D plane to a sculpted 3-D surface. My intention is to explore multiple dimensions simultaneously and combine physical movement with the illusionary effect of digital movement to heighten the viewer's perception of special depth. I refer to this work as "4-dimensional" since I'm addressing the three special dimensions as well as the dimension of time (time lapse video). To me this is the most logical step for my artistic development.
What would you order from a Japanese restaurant menu?
Water and breadsticks. I'm from the Midwest and my attempts to acquire a taste for raw fish didn't take.
Ben Marxen is an artist based in Brooklyn, NY. To learn more about him, please visit: http://www.unitedcreators.com/BenMarxen.
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