Benjamin Norton

Coffee and The Future

2012-01-31T19:29:00.000-08:00

Recently my work came down after a lengthy show at Ghostlight Coffee, a new(ish) cafe in the South Park neighborhood near downtown Dayton, OH. While these weren't the ideal walls and lighting situation, it was definitely a great place to showcase my work; the colors really glowed against the walls at night, and the atmosphere of the coffeeshop is great. Lots of good feedback, I'm glad and surprised to hear the amount of varied responses to it all. Here's a few shots from Ghostlight:

Right now there's lots of big plans in the works. Two new series, shows in several states, new collaborations. Stay tuned.

Diverse Arts Project

2011-08-05T13:05:00.000-07:00

Recently, I was interviewed for the Diverse Arts Project, an online periodical for the arts. Check it out if you haven't already!

http://www.thediverseartsproject.com/reportage/2011/6/30/interview-ben-norton-painter.html

New Work

2011-05-06T14:53:00.000-07:00

I'm freshly returned from another trip to Nashville, TN, and I figured it must be time to update my blog again. "Again" is a relative term here, since it's been so long that it almost counts as a completely new effort. A lot has happened, but I think it's more important for me to just get the new work up, so here goes.

"Adam"
Oil, Acrylic on Canvas
50" x 36"

"Processional III"
Oil, Acrylic on Canvas
24" x 18"

"Processional IV"
Oil, Acrylic on Canvas
24" x 18"

"Processional V"
Oil, Acrylic on Canvas
47" x 36"

"Progression/Evolution"
Oil, Acrylic on Canvas
62" x 44"

"Sleep Now"
Oil, Acrylic on Canvas
28" x 22"

"Color Study"
Oil on Canvas
12" x 9"

"Bridgette"
Oil on Canvas
30" x 20"

"Memento Mori"
Oil, Acrylic on Canvas
61" x 48"

"Memento Mori" detail

"You Are What I Made You"
Oil, Acrylic on Canvas
84" x 54"

"You Are What I Made You II"
Oil, Acrylic on Canvas
30" x 22"

Everything New

2010-09-18T09:26:00.000-07:00

A lot of changes and progress since my last post. I've finished several commissions, moved to a new studio, and taken on more gallery work.

By far the biggest project I recently completed was for A Special Wish Foundation. Based in Dayton, OH, this group grants wishes to children facing terminal diseases. Most kids ask for a trip to Disney World or to meet a celebrity, but every so often the request is a bit more unique.

Bonnie Noj had one of those very unique wishes. When diagnosed with leukemia, she was given the chance for her own special wish, and her first request was for a princess castle that she could sleep in. Of course, who wouldn't ask for that? One of A Special Wish's employees contacted me about helping out with the project, and I signed on without a second thought. Definitely a bigger project than I expected. The castle's design is essentially the coolest bunk bed you could imagine, with a slide, battlements, stairs, and even a secret compartment for hiding treasure (all dreamed up by Bonnie). Fortunately I was only responsible for painting the castle, as they found a carpenter to construct the bed. The decoration was also based on Bonnie's requests. There were flowers, there were butterflies, there was a rainbow. During the painting process, Bonnie and her family came to visit several times, and every time she dressed as a different princess, keeping the castle in its proper role as a proper princess's castlebed. Though it took much longer than I could have expected, it all came to together wonderfully, and was finished just in time for Bonnie's 5th birthday at the end of June. A great gift that I feel blessed to be a part of.

Oh, and from the last update I've heard on Bonnie, she's just started the kindergarten and is doing very well health-wise.

The past few months have been spent focusing on commissions more than anything else. Here's two more paintings that I worked on.

A family portrait. The scene requested was "a group of people on a hill praising God."

Created in memoriam of a maintenance worker at my high school.
He was murdered in late April. You can find an article here.
Malith was a good family friend, and this came as a great shock.
Hopefully this piece does him proper justice.

There have been a few other paintings, but no images for those at the moment.

So as you can see, a lot of activity lately. This has really been the result of my new studio space. I'm now located in the Front Street warehouse complex in Dayton, a group of buildings in which you can find all manner of small businesses and artists. One could argue that the majority of significant art in Dayton comes out of this group of warehouses, so I'm glad to be a part of it. My space is meager but more than sufficient for my needs. Here's a few shots of my place to conclude.

American Gods and Projects

2010-03-27T20:59:00.001-07:00

My show at Malton was lovely, and now feels like a long time ago. Time for another.

Right now, I have a show up at the University of Dayton's Marianist Hall. Titled American Gods, it consists of the majority of work from my last show along with my most recent piece, a seven-foot behemoth that I've spent way too much time on at this point. I'm not sure as to it's success at this point, but I feel like it sums up where I've been and projects where I'm headed. The show will be up until May 3rd, so anyone in the central Ohio area should come check it out. I'll put up some more pictures of the work in a couple weeks.

I'm also in the midst of several other projects right now. I have a small handful of commissions to be working on, and new ideas for my next work that are far from being fully fleshed out. And also my next show, coming in early May: a one-night affair across media. Stay tuned.

Solo show!

2010-02-10T19:16:00.001-08:00

My first solo show!
Malton Gallery! Cincinnati!
February 21! 3 to 6 pm!

Check it out here!

Updated Images

2009-12-15T19:46:00.001-08:00

Finally, some updated images of the most recent work. The first piece below, Processional I, actually just sold in Columbus last week to a nice couple moving into the Short North. Hopefully they'll be sending me pics of the piece installed in their home soon after it's up.

Processional I
oil, acrylic, and charcoal on canvas
48" x 36"

Processional II
oil, acrylic, and charcoal on canvas
44" x 44"

The New Pantheon
oil, acrylic, charcoal on canvas
65" x 27"

Elijah
Oil, acrylic on canvas
36" x 24"

Stella
oil, acrylic on canvas
48" x 24"

New projects for new seasons

2009-10-09T14:04:00.000-07:00

The Creative Soul show was a tremendous success! Turnout for the opening last Friday was much larger than I expected, with a couple hundred people streaming through the gallery over the course of the night, and the art on display covered a much wider range of styles than I would have thought to come from Dayton.
On top of that, I received an award for Best in Media for Painting. Not one of the top prizes, but definitely a nothing to complain about considering the amount of painting that was in the show.
Additionally, several other artists I know or am connected with all received awards as well. One of my roommates, Hillary Hopkins, received another Honorable Mention award (a link to her blog can be found on the left), and one of the other artists of the Summer Space studio at Excelsior, Darren Haper, received one of the Grand Prize awards as well. On top of that, several of my past professors from UD all received various awards, so it was great to see the success of so many people I've gotten to know.
Here are a few shots from the show, including views of my two paintings that were in it.

I just realized that I didn't have any good shots of my second painting in the show, so here it is when it was 90% finished. I'll likely be going back to the show in the next few weekends, so maybe I'll put up some better shots if I get any (clearly photography is not my forte). And a reminder to all those in the Dayton area (or within driving distance): the show will stay up until November 6th, and is open every Saturday from noon to 4 pm. Please come check it out, and make sure you vote for a piece for the People's Choice award, which will be announced at the closing reception in November (5 to 10 pm on the 6th).

Moving on, I'm beginning several new projects over the course of the next few weeks, some more worth mentioning than others. Starting sometime soon, I'll be working on a project for the A Special Wish Foundation, which I'm very excited about. More to follow on that later as I get closer to the project. Coming up sooner, I'll be doing a collaborative effort with local Dayton music act BJSR. Details are still a bit up in the air for this as well, but it should be interesting. Finally, right now I've begun the biggest painting of my career. Just finished building the stretcher, stretching, and priming the canvas in the past week, now all that's left is actually starting the monstrosity. It measures in at 6 feet tall by 15 feet wide. Excitement is an understatement, though daunting is also soon to be true, as fall is beginning and all warmth in our studio is slowly slipping away.

from the studio

2009-09-27T20:24:00.000-07:00

This Friday marks the opening of the Creative Soul of Dayton show, which'll run until November 6th at the Armory Building in the Oregon Arts District. The show features the work of over a hundred Dayton artists, including many of those that I link to on my site (Hillary Hopkins, Amanda Baker, Lauren Tomasella, Mike Elsass, and myself, to name a few). If you're in the area, don't miss it!
More information on that can be found at the Creative Soul website.

Also, about to start a big project, the largest painting I've ever attempted. It's a mystery now, but expect updates within the week.

Finally, I need to mention something very new and very important. One of my roommates and fellow Dayton artists recently published a book on the Oregon Arts District in Dayton. She's a photographer, and so the book is filled with pictures that capture the spirit of the district. Overall, it's very well-done.
You can check it out here, be sure to preview it and buy a copy or five.

blues

2009-07-15T21:24:00.000-07:00

"Untitled"
Oil on Canvas

"Genesis"
Charcoal, Acrylic, and Oil on Canvas
48" x 36"

2009-07-15T19:54:00.000-07:00

Two paintings from a few months ago. Both oil on canvas, both untitled. Expect more to follow shortly.

Catchup

2009-06-12T14:36:00.000-07:00

Alright, lots of paintings to be caught up on here. Following my graduation this past May, I've recently begun a lot of very new and exciting things in Dayton, all revolving my inclusion in the new Artists of Summer Space program. Once I get my past portfolio more or less updated on this site, I'll talk about that more. In the meantime, check out the website here or at the link to the side of this page.

These pieces are part of the "Creation/Conviction" series, each in acrylic, charcoal, and oil paint. This series was a reflection on creation stories of Genesis, focusing on both the building up and fall of man in the first chapters of the Old Testament.

2009-06-02T08:48:00.000-07:00

"Prophets in Exile"
36" x 48" - acrylic, oil, charcoal on canvas

2009-02-23T14:36:00.000-08:00

December of 2008. Bronze patina on ceramics. Weird.

John as Icon

2009-02-23T10:15:00.000-08:00

This is a piece from November of 2008, oil on wood panel. It's meant to follow in the tradition of Orthodox icon paintings. The figure is John the Baptist, known as the "Angel of the Desert" (hence the wings) and martyred through beheading (hence the disembodied head in the bottom corner).

For more information on icons, here's a wikipedia page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icon

Kites revisited

2009-02-22T21:26:00.001-08:00

I still haven't figured out what to call these forms, but for simplicity's sake I just call them 'kites.' This is a return to the work I did during my term as an artist in residence at UD, this time trying to focus more on the paint and organic form. This piece was one of several that I had in a show I co-curated with another artist in downtown Dayton. Anyway, the picture's a bit dark since I took it at the show, but it gets the idea across.

Senior Year work

2008-09-27T11:09:00.000-07:00

Now that I've been back into school for about a month, I've got some decent work worth posting on here. Being a senior, I've got my own studio space, and although it's only part of a larger room, it's more space than I've ever had as my own. Here it is:

Yep, only partway through the year and already cluttered, that's my life. So anyway, we had our first sculpture and painting critiques last week, so here's my work from those. For painting, I had a series of four, and then one larger individual painting.

And here are a few more detailed shots:

The assigned theme for this series was 'mnemonic maps', so I loosely applied that idea to the work I was already doing. As I'm taking a class focusing on the prophets of the Old Testament, those stories are what have been emerging in my work. All of the figures in these paintings come from the first and second books of Kings, though I've brought in images and ideas from several other stories.

For the individual piece, my ideas were a bit less crystallized. The theme we were asked to incorporate was 'pentimenti' or 'palimpsest'. The idea of 'pentimenti' refers to painting or reworking an older painting, while 'palimpsest' refers to the very old practice of wiping out old books or scrolls in order to write something new on them (how's that for going green?). With this painting, I took a painting I started last year and painted right over it, starting something entirely different. I also worked with several layers of underpainting to achieve the final result. I wanted to focus on simultaneous ideas of birth and decay, of bringing in new life while trying to cling to what's falling away.

At the same time, I've also been working in sculpture, revisiting and revising the forms I first started using in the 2007 UD AIR program. My materials haven't really changed, but now I'm trying to bring more elements of my painting into the mix. For my sculpture class, I produced a smaller scale installation of the kite forms.

For now, the piece is floor based, but that will change if I can find an appropriate venue fairly soon.

Anyway, that's all that I can show now, time for more work.

2008-08-14T22:01:00.000-07:00

No pictures yet. I managed to hang all the new pieces in Dayton successfully, but of course didn't have my camera with me when I did, so any photographic evidence will have to wait until I'm back in Ohio. Which won't be long, I'm actually moving back in on Monday to start my last year of school. So maybe then I'll be able to get some more pictures.

On an unrelated note, I went to visit the Frist today, Nashville's main art museum. They have a show there now called "Color as Field: American Painting, 1950-1975." Like the name says, the exhibit consisted of color field paintings by the likes of Mark Rothko, Helen Frankenthaler, and Frank Stella, along with a handful of others. I went to this show not because I expected to enjoy it, but because I really kind of felt I had to. Honestly, I really didn't think I'd like a single piece in this show.

Right now, I'm still not sure how much of the show I actually enjoyed. Big blotches of color have never really appealed to me whenever I've studied them in the past, and now they still don't hold too much more appeal for me. But at the same time, I really did start to appreciate the work once I was in the middle of it all. For example, I've honestly never liked any of Rothko's work. I love his writing, and I understand his importance, but all his interchangeable paintings just never did anything for me. Now that I've experienced the actual presence of one, I can start to understand it a bit more. With the majority of these paintings, the impact really isn't because of any assessment of the imagery or colors used, but instead it's all in the experience of standing in front of something so huge. Seriously, many of these paintings had at least one side that was near nine feet in length.

I think a lot of this impact of such a spectacle comes from the fact that I'm a painter myself. When I look at these, I just picture myself trying to create something that huge, ten foot tall paintings of awkward masked guys and weird looking girls. It's really, really exciting.

Overall, the sense I get from these paintings is one convergent with my intentions regarding the Meditations installation. An atmosphere starts to emerge from the sheer presence of the pieces, and once you're standing a foot away from them, the feeling moves from partial atmosphere to full environment.

Anyway, if you live in or near Nashville, you should check it out, though I'd definitely say it won't be everyone's cup of tea. More information can be found right here.

I'm sure you could find pictures of all the work somewhere online, but to say that the pictures don't do the work justice is like saying Alaska is kind of big for a state.

To sum up: big paintings are really cool, more pictures of my work in their current environs will hopefully be around very soon ( a week, maybe?).

Rough Pictures

2008-07-29T20:39:00.001-07:00

Here are some rough studio/basement pictures of the work I'll be adding to the St. Clair Lofts show. Two more that I don't have pictures of yet. Mostly satisfied with these, although only one or two really achieved what I wanted them to, to be honest. The shadow of the chain on the first picture is not actually in the painting, by the way, it just happened to be where the light fell in that spot in the room.

More pictures and such in a week, after I can hang it all up and take some better pictures.

St. Clair, part one

2008-07-29T20:00:00.000-07:00

So this summer has led to a lot of computer problems for me, hence a serious lack of updating on this blog. At the start of the summer, I hung a show on the bottom floor of St. Clair Lofts. These were all paintings completed in the past year. Definitely very exciting, as it's my first public solo show (even though the space isn't quite a traditional gallery).

Here are a few pictures of the space:

Of course, the necessary "before" picture

This piece is definitely different from the rest of the work I posted in this show - an acrylic self portrait. It's separated from the rest by a couple storefronts, though, so I don't feel bad about including it. And by the way, this piece won the Horvath award for realism in the University of Dayton 2008 Horvath Student Juried Exhibition. Not to brag or anything.

And as I said before, a very unconventional space. None of the inside of the rooms are actually accessible to the public however, so all anyone from the street can see are white sheets and the paintings.

Two pieces that I don't have official documentation of yet. The standing figure actually won second place at the University of Dayton 2008 Horvath Juried Exhibition.

There are five oil paintings that I hung, so I tried to get shots of all of them in a somewhat cohesive manner.

Currently, I have plans to travel to Dayton in the next few days to swap out these paintings in exchange for some new ones. In my opinion, these next new ones are really weird and kind of exciting at the same time. Maybe just more exciting for me to make them, as they're a slight departure from my usual themes and feel a little less inhibited. Expect updates in a week or so, and this time I promise to be prompt.

Concentrated painting

2008-05-20T09:11:00.000-07:00

Palimpsest in the Book of Job

Acrylic, Charcoal, Oil on Canvas

61" x 48"

Forty Days in the Desert

Acrylic, Oil on Canvas

36" x 24"

Lot

Acrylic, Oil on Canvas

32" x 24"

Jonah in Wait

Acrylic, Oil on Panel

48" x 36"

Bathsheba

Acrylic, Oil on Canvas

36" x 50"

Print Works

2008-05-20T08:31:00.001-07:00

Untitled

Woodcut, Monotype, and Destruction Ground

14" x 12"

Untitled

Intaglio, Spitbite, and Destruction Ground

9" x 8"

Untitled

Intaglio, Spitbite, and Destruction Ground

9" x 8"

Untitled

Intaglio, Spitbite, and Destruction Ground

9" x 8"

An update on everything

2008-05-20T08:20:00.000-07:00

Four panel still life

Acrylic

12" x 16" each

Self Portrait

Acrylic

48" x 36"

2008-02-28T17:31:00.000-08:00

Well, it took me applying to a fellowship for this summer to get me to finally document some work and try to update this website. Things have been ridiculously busy since the start of school, and frankly, they still are. I still need to update though, so everyone who occasionally stumbles across this site will know what's going on in my life. Here's what's taken up the better part of my first semester and trickled some into this past semester:
Right there in the middle of the whole gallery. This was kind of an interesting painting because I wanted it on unstretched canvas, so I needed a way to hang it away from the wall that would still be engaging. So, after months of trying to think of a good idea, I decided to weld hooks to a steel rod that I curved into a backing shape. Of course I didn't get the idea for using the hooks and sewing loops onto the back of the canvas until the week before the piece was supposed to go on display.
The shape is a bit hard to describe. The center is mostly flat, while the edges of the actual painting curve forward on either side and then curve back where the curtaining is sewn in. Looking from above, each side looks like a 'u' while the center looks like an 'n'. How's that for a technical description?
Anyway, as I already said, the piece is on display right now at the ArtStreet Gallery at UD for a show entitled "the natural & the articifial." We had a class last semester to make work for this show, which is scheduled to ship overseas to the Nanjing Art Institute and show over there after this school year concludes. They have a show over here right now as well, currently at another gallery on campus.

Part of the class involved in this show was spent doing numerous studies in preparation of the final pieces. Here's a few shots of one of my better sets of studies.

This set of paintings came as a response to a visit that our class took to Japan House in Champaign, Illinois, a center set up to conduct Japanese tea ceremonies. The paintings are all oil on canvas, each 16" x 16" squares.

Here's some more details from the main painting above, I'll put up more work in subsequent posts.

Resurrection

2007-10-01T15:23:00.000-07:00

Seeing as it's been over a month since I last even attempted updating, I figure it's high time for a return. The installation of the summer project went well, and the opening for it went equally well. A few pictures:

Much better images are at the UD Artist in Residency website, http://udair.blogspot.com, I believe. There's a link on the side of this page if you're into convenience.
In other news, classes have begun... a month ago.... so there's a host of new projects around, some interesting, some not so much. I just finished a four panel series of small oils for one class, I'll have documentation of that up once I get those back (or once they're installed). I pulled a series of prints last week that I have yet to document as well, so again, those will be up in the future. For now, here are a few pictures on my computer right now that I love.

Again and Again

2007-08-16T11:05:00.000-07:00

At this point, all the welding was done. I had to spray down each of the frames with a clear primer so they wouldn't rust through the spandex when painted. The next step was to stretch spandex across each of the forms and attach it somehow. I had to experiment with a few different techniques to find the best method of stretching, but I ended up with a good result. Ultimately, I ended up stretching the spandex across the surface, and then lacing the back up with nylon cord, kind of like lacing up a shoe. This'll give you some idea of what it looked like:
The whole process of stretching took a little over a week. Of the 13 total forms I made, nine were convex and four were concave. The convex forms were easy to stretch, since I could just use the straight-forward method of lacing them like in the picture above. The concave forms posed a bit more of a challenge, however, as the spandex needed to be pulled inward while also being pulled at the edges (like in the convex forms). This problem took a bit more thought to resolve, and I ended up using two different methods. For the most part, I used a bead of expoxy down the central metal spine to glue the spandex to the frame. After waiting a day for them to dry, I could go ahead then and stretch the spandex across the sides as usual. In one case, I actually sewed the center of the spandex to the metal spine of its frame. This actually worked really well, maybe better than the epoxy, but it took too much work and too much time to be worth it.

With the stretching done, all that was left was priming, painting, and installation. Priming was simple. Two coats of gesso on each form. Still took about a week, but easy. I had to spread modeling paste in the centers of the concave forms to smooth out the creases where the spandex was attached to the center of the frames. The painting process was the only familiar territory of this project, so it posed the least challenge and felt the most intuitive. The paint job was topped off with a coat of matte varnish, and then all that was left was installation.

Progress

2007-07-25T13:57:00.000-07:00

Alright, here's some real stuff. The next step was a small maquette to give a better feel of the final composition and add some color to the plans. Here tis.

So, now I'm finally at the start of real work. The second beginning, the beginning of actual construction. I spent a week welding steel rods together to make the framework of each piece in the installation. After that, it took another 3 or 4 days to weld legs onto each piece so they could be mounted to the wall. Lots of work but lots of fun. I have a few shots of each piece and a few shots from the process of actually welding, but documentation on that end is a bit scant.

A lot of this end of the work was spent with trying to figure out angles for each rod to join and how I wanted the forms to curve. The rest of the time was all welding and grinding down steel. I have a few pictures of that, but they were all taken by another artist for another project, so all of the pictures focus on my hands rather than the actual work taking place. Here's a few of them.

At this point, I'd say about a third of the work is done. Next post: spandex.

Summer, Part II

2007-07-18T09:00:00.000-07:00

After analysis of the space was finished, the brainstorming process began. Lots of ideas, lots that didn't work, and a few good ones. Here's some of the sketches, along with the first draft for the final piece.

That picture in the middle is the inspiration for the idea. Some random amphitheater in a park in Cincinnati, I have no idea what the place is called. Not important. This is where the idea started, the one that I'm using now. The drawing on the bottom there is what I intended to create, where those polygons would end up being three dimensional forms made of steel and stretched canvas (just like the amphitheater, right?). For those spots of color on the sides. Exciting, but perhaps not enough to carry the room? I don't know, I still like the idea, but it didn't fly with my bosses, so it was nixed. Maybe I'll do something like that another time.

Anyway, once the idea was settled, I had to start work on full sketches of the layout. Here they are, in all their smudged and dirt-covered glory.

The sketch on the left refers to the central panel in the sketch on the right. I realize these probably don't look nearly as exciting to other people as I find them, but it'll make more sense with the next few posts.

Finally

2007-07-14T17:43:00.000-07:00

Alright, this officially begins my attempts at chronicling everything I've been working for this summer. I still need to get a few more pictures, and the project isn't actually finished yet, so it'll take a while to post everything. But here's a start.
For the position of artist in residence, eight students were hired. The program was intended to produce art that would hang in several of the residence halls on campus. All of them, actually. Originally, I was teamed up with two other students to create work for three different parts of campus: ArtStreet apartments, Lawnview apartments, and Campus South apartments. The first two buildings serve as apartments for juniors and seniors, the last houses sophomores.
The first step in this process was to conduct a detailed assessment of each space where art would be placed. Since I was paired with two other guys, we decided to split up the areas we would assess. My decided space would be a foyer leading into apartments 312A and B at ArtStreet. Here's a few pictures of my notes on the area (sorry, the only pictures I have of it right now are kind of crappy).

Continuity, perchance?

2007-06-25T20:55:00.000-07:00

So how about weekly updates? Looks like it's happening.
--------
I'm currently working as a student artist in residence at the University of Dayton. I'm creating an installation for an entry hallway into two apartments. I'll have some pictures of my progress up when I get them onto my computer. Maybe next time.
Anyway, I feel obligated to post some kind of picture each time, so here's a print:

Goodnight.

Appearance

2007-06-19T06:13:00.000-07:00

Since everyone else in the world (or at least most of the art community) already has some type of blog, I figured it was high time I followed suit. After all, if it's good for everyone else, it should be good for me too, right? Next week we're all going over to the bridge on Stewart St and jumping off. You should come.

So anyway, hi. I'm Ben, I do art things. And this is now my blog. It'll pretty much all be art, either stuff I make or stuff I find and really like. So enjoy it. Starting now.
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This guy is currently the only piece I've ever sold. Based on Ian MacKaye and the current state of the hardcore community. To sum it up, the straightedge community has grown increasingly more violent, and in doing so has debased the image of anyone associated with it who doesn't share the same volatile us vs. them mentality. The piece is a Bondo and resin mixture, painted with a bronze patina, size is about a foot tall.