NYAB Event - Benjamin Anderson "Just Add Water"

Benjamin Anderson "Just Add Water"

Blank Space

This event has ended.

Blank Space presents a solo exhibition of paintings by Benjamin Anderson. Anderson uses water as his visual vehicle in a series of paintings that blend themes of beauty, war, and materialism. Diluting and distorting the lines of perception and beauty, the artist utilizes both realism and abstraction in his vision to relegate the importance of the material world to simple forms and shapes.

The concept of Just Add Water takes on a new meaning in this show of provocative paintings that invite the viewer into Anderson’s mastery of water’s influence on objects. Adding water to material objects makes them immaterial both visually and physically; add water to people and it can both give life and take it away. Beauty becomes ugly, the indefinable takes center stage, and distortion is the key, leaving the viewer to be taken in by the paintings and interpret them in variety of disparate ways.

Objects of importance become unrecognizable blobs of color and shapes. As the viewer approaches the paintings and is no longer able to take in the entire image, the shapes become abstractions and the simple beauty of color and texture become the focus.

Water as life,
As death,
As abstraction.
Searching for not an object,
Simply the essence.

Anderson received a BFA from the San Francisco Academy of Art University and has also received training from the Alaska Indian Arts Center in Alaska and the Scuola Leonardo Da Vinci in Florence, Italy. Anderson’s work was first presented in the De Young Museum of Fine Arts Emerging Artists Exhibition of 2001. He has shown work in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Italy and most recently in Santa Barbara, California. In addition to his collaboration on the M-E-Y-K Art Kits, he is also a co-owner and co-curator of Anderson ART Collective.