Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Website: http://thebenclarkson.com/
E-mail: ben.clarkson[at]gmail.com
 Winnipeg Free Press by Stacey Abramson (2009/06/18)
The Goal is a single work, or several pieces of work, which stem from my recent obsession with the story of Don Giovanni and Soren Kierkegaard's salient essay on the subject from his book Either/Or. The series exists as aphorisms, like cells in a battery; a synecdoche.
The drawings are absurd and pataphysical, they are humorous and also sometimes deeply troubling. Statues that drag our anti-heroes to hell permeate squares where there is no landscape, no context, no consequence, only what is immediately perceived. The Goal exists as a record of an attempt to quantify the lifestyle of the amoral with no intention of judgement. I hope to have created a pictorial record of both myself, as an animal, and a concise study of the aesthetic sphere of existence.
My other drawings act as aphorisms as well, without a perceived theme. Whether they be the humorous images of deer as humans, or small episodes of Franz Kafka as an unlikely forest ranger, these drawings draw on our ability to create a narrative or to ignore the absurdity of them.
Education
2004 - 2008: B.F.A., Honours major in Drawing, University
of Manitoba
Affiliations
Submissions Club, Art Collective. Founding Member:
January 2008 - Present
Exhibitions
Solo Exhibitions
July 2008 "All things in common" The Next Thought Gallery,
Winnipeg MB
May 2008 "Creating Cartesian Conundrums" Gallery of Student
Art, Winnipeg MB
Feb 2008 "White to play and win..." Starving Artist Gallery,
Winnipeg MB
Selected Group Exhibitions
Aug 2008 "Iodine" The Edge Gallery, Winnipeg MB
June 2008 "Dy'Nasty" Private Art Function, Winnipeg MB
April 2008 "PDF" Ace Art inc., Winnipeg MB
April 2008 "Fine Art Thesis Show" Gallery 111, Winnipeg MB
Awards and Grants
May 2009 Manitoba Arts Council Visual C Grant
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