Quick Draw Artist Interview #21: Ben Blatt

Quick Draw Artist Interviews are a series of interviews conducted by Otino Corsano using Facebook's IM Chat feature. Spontaneous conversations with international artists are recorded and documented specifically for publication on this blog.

Quick: meteoric. fierce flora and feisty fauna. A sealed chip is preservation. Somehow from where I’m standing the framed and its external source are visible at the same moment only because of both happenstance and a scientific deflection. They were never just nature’s vacancy. Draw: art about art.

Ben Blatt lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. He was born in Denver, Colorado and holds a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. He has exhibited in New York at White Columns, Half Gallery, Halsey Mckay, Bellwether, Feigen Contemporary, as well as at the John Michael Kohler Art Center in Sheboygan, WI, and V1 Gallery in Copenhagen, Denmark.

http://benblatt.com

http://www.halseymckay.com/ben-blatt-temporal-fever

Ben Blatt

Chat Conversation Start

Today

Otino

7:59pm

Hi Ben.

Are we ready?

Ben

8:00pm

Ready.

Otino

8:07pm

Have you received new responses to your most recent exhibition titled “Temporal Fever” at Halsey McKay Gallery?

Ben

8:08pm

As in press?

Otino

8:08pm

Or even from viewers at the reception?

Ben

8:09pm

Yes. I think everyone mentioned something they like about the new work.

I have things moving in a new direction and am exhibiting graphite drawings taking several years to create.

The new paintings featured were created within the last few months of this year (2012) while I began the drawings in 2004-2005 and kept coming back to over again until this spring 2012.

Otino

8:12pm

Let's focus on this described "new direction": How would you say the work in this most recent show has progressed from earlier experiments – from your first Bell jar contained environments?

Ben

8:11pm

These new paintings are much more colour focused as I became interested in the process I use to create images and wanted to replicate this approach directly in the paintings.

I wanted the color to be saturated to provide a definite emotion.

I also make collages and it was in these past works where I first found the process just as interesting as the final results.

Otino

8:15pm

Maybe we can talk specifically about your reduced palette in relation to a specific work (and possible focal point) in the show. Let's take: “Blue Diamond” as a first example.

"Blue Diamond" 2012, Watercolour, gouache, ink, colour pencil on paper, 22.125" x 22.75"

Ben

8:15pm

I really wanted to achieve an almost hypnotic feeling for this piece.

I knew the patterning in the grass and polyhedron shape would be aided by a muted saturated color.

Otino

8:17pm

Beyond colour effects what was the driving intention for this painting?

Ben

8:16pm

“Blue Diamond” fused imagery from two historical paintings I have always been haunted by:

Henri Rousseau's “The Snake Charmer” and

Jacopo de’Barbari's “Portrait of Fra Luca Pacioli and an Unknown Young Man”.

This latter work is where the polyhedron came from while the overall feeling was inspired by “The Snake Charmer”.

Otino

8:20pm

ah.

Interesting combination of sources.

Similarly, in the past, you have cited a broad spectrum of art historical references to your detailed aesthetics - from Rococo, Symbolism, Wunderkammen, to Romanticism.

Yet in my view, Hieronymus Bosch seems to deserve more specific credit. Is there a moralizing aspect to your work or even a call to return to more naturalist ideals?

Ben

8:19pm

I really do feel I am most spiritually energized in nature: contemplating it, worshipping it and at the same time fearing it.

This theme runs through all the works in this show.

I think we would all gain by disconnecting more; yet this is getting harder to do these days.

In a way, all of these works are personal paradises and worlds offering this kind of retreat.

Otino

8:25pm

Is your work anti-digital?

I have read you employ subtle reference to digital filters and CMYK offsets in your applications of tones.

Can you explain your relationship to technology through the work?

Ben

8:23pm

My work is influenced by the digital world.

I find the way we now interact with visual imagery very fascinating.

In “Blue Diamond” I pixelated de’Barbari’s polyhedron in Photoshop and painted the background in ‘low resolution’.

It’s part of our language now: clicking and zooming; enhancing images; low res and hi res; color separation. All of these things I try to add to my work to heighten the power of the imagery.

Otino

8:30pm

Accordingly, it appears you do a great job of fetishizing the digital realm of "retouching" using very traditional media and techniques.

“Flotilla 1” almost appears ‘Photoshopped’ except for the brilliance of infinitely fine brush strokes as opposed to the mere rearrangement or creation of limited pixels.

"Flotilla 1" 2012, Watercolour, gouache, ink, colour pencil on paper, 16" x 26.5"

Ben

8:29pm

I wanted to replicate a lot of old and new technologies in this body of work.

I copied the patterns in hunting tapestries trying to emulate the single threading and texture while lining them up next to low resolution star maps.

Flotilla 1 was a highly composed composition. I referenced and tried to copy meticulously Fragonard's weightless trees.

Otino

8:33pm

From a specific painting source or in general?

Ben

8:31pm

From several of his paintings.

Otino

8:34pm

Would it be fair to say you employ digital sources to progress early "realist" models towards "hyper-real" contemporary advancements?

Ben

8:33pm

Absolutely.

Otino

8:35pm

Do you hide any special visual items or messages in your work?

Ben

8:36pm

With the drawings, I would often enter almost a trance-like state and faces would appear in the foliage when I was drawing the thousands of leaves.

There are faces in “Blue Diamond” appearing in the central black bush.

I see these images more as portraits – not really as direct messages.

Otino

8:37pm

On average per day, how many hours do you spend painting?

Ben

8:38pm

When I’m meeting a deadline: 12-14 hours a day.

Watercolor is time consuming.

Otino

8:39pm

What are some of the effects of this labor-intensive program beyond the production of highly refined paintings?

Ben

8:40pm

I get into strange positions with the big canvases and so my back, neck and hands take a real beating. On a marathon of days of painting steadily in a row,

my eyes get pretty tired too.

Otino

8:41pm

Are you now able to sustain a full-time painting practice through the success of your work or does another form of employment supplement your practice?

Ben

8:41pm

It has only been this last year I have been able to paint mostly full time.

Before then I was doing almost every job you can imagine: art assistant, bartender, teaching, graphic designer… on and on.

I would save up money to take a block of time off and then do a show and then it was back to work.

Otino

8:43pm

Is there a current waiting list for your works?

Ben

8:42pm

I have people who want something special lined up as commissions; still, there are works currently available at the gallery.

Otino

8:45pm

There was a significant incubation period (a decade) between the completion of your BFA at Rhode Island in 2001 and your first solo-show in 2011.

Did it take some time for people to wrap their heads around this return to a renaissance-like purity?

You appeared steadily in group shows either highlighting the "detailing" of your work or its "utopian" aspirations.

Ben

8:47pm

People really responded to the work and aesthetic from the beginning.

I was lucky and was even offered shows I had to turn down. A lot of time passed in between because of a variety of factors including some tough personal stuff, my perfectionist personality, and the expensive of living and working in New York.

I was lucky to get my big break from Bill Powers at Half Gallery. He saw one piece and offered me the show. Things started rolling again and I knew this was what I wanted to dedicate all my time to.

Otino

8:51pm

Are you ambitious to showcase the work in more established spaces and/or have you received interest from other high profile dealers?

Ben

8:51pm

Definitely. I can't imagine filling an arena-sized space.

I want to stay true to what I love to do and there are more things happening in the future.

Otino

8:54pm

Wondering if we can conclude with a personal tour of your incredible work:

“Tropic (Tortuguero)”

"Tropic (Tortuguero)" 2012, Watercolour, gouache, ink, colour pencil on paper, 12" x 18"

Of course led by you - its creator.

Lead us through this world Ben.

Ben

8:54pm

This piece was a commission. The collector mostly wanted a personal escape through a jungle-like scene. I had recently returned from the wetlands of Tortuguero in Costa Rica on my honeymoon and this imagery came together very easily.

Otino

8:58pm

Is the wildlife and plant life accurate to the natural Costa Rican environment?

Ben

8:57pm

Some are native and other elements are based on models from museums.

I wanted to add real music to the canvas from the birds – more a kind of tropical, real garden of earthly delights.

The trip was a great experience because I had been drawing all this plant life from dioramas and books yet never got to see it in person until I visited Costa Rica.

Otino

9:01pm

Is an environmental call to action part of your strategy or is this too simplistic a read? Are you invested in the preservation of natural and at-risk environments or does your work move beyond this pragmatic call for rebuilding our earth’s resources?