Ben White

Ben White

Ben White's paintings merge anachronistic personages, events, biblical narratives, and popular culture to create a fantastic, nonlinear interpretation of history. These con- structions play with the nature of subjectivity and historical memory. He uses history as a medium, abstractly arranging topics displaced from their proper contexts. To achieve this dislocation, he filters his personal interests through Google searches, juxtaposing disparate, arbitrary results. Each work is a mental self-portrait from a certain moment, showing the multiplicitous aspect of thought – one might be reading about Gauguin’s Jacob Wrestling with the Angel while listening to the band Rush and dreaming about their 2112 tour. These perceptions become a mash-up, a summation of personal existence that can't be contained by any historical account. America’s founding fathers, persecuted witches, Jesus, and other sub- jects from mythology and the artistic canon populate these works, interacting fantastically with situations and personages from distant and recent history. The incongruencies are absurd, and the absurdity itself pulls them into the present. White's satire disarms imposing and familiar figures, relieving them of their historical and academic baggage and rendering them comical and approachable. It becomes our history again, on equal terms with the present and once again acceptable as subject matter for contemporary painting. Historical gravity, leavened by wit, becomes a source of pleasure and fascination.

- Lara Bank, California Contemporary Art - Summer 2010