Ben Rosenberg
(Portland, Oregon USA)
Artist Website
The Shadow Knows, Charcoal, pencil wash on wood panel, 18" x 18"
My natural instinct as an artist is to work like a scientist, collecting and investigating through a wide variety of media from drawing and painting to sculpture and filmmaking. As Jean Baudrillard states in The Ecstasy of Communication, we get captivated about what is around us. "If one reflects upon it, we exist only in the brief instant when we are seduced--by whatever moves us: an object, a face, an idea, a word, a passion." The artist is an interpreter and translator bringing new insights about this ever changing, complicated, and sometimes-hostile world to an audience of viewers.
Much like an urban archeologist I find myself asking questions about what I see and what I am recording. I am the observer of unintentional design and a participant in an unspoken conversation. I often find myself ascribing my own narrative meaning to a set of observations about the things I see.
I surrender myself to new materials and use them in new ways.