Ben Darrah

PRESENT Statement

My approach is an intuitive, playful exploration of elements. I focus on a singular image, which is emphasized by its placement on an abstract ground and mediated through the process of stencilling. My choices reflect a curiosity in elevating an everyday, recognizable, common object or image to the status of scrutinized subject. Clouds, trousers, easy chairs - not typically regarded as usual subjects of art, provide the introduction to my narrative.

The narrative is as much about the narrative itself, the path of associations, as it is about any end point or realization. In this exhibition I have mapped out an internal narrative, one which switches back and forth between immediate experience and contemplative self awareness and in the process describes a place.

I am concerned with the interstice of the human construct - the space between how we perceive landscape and other "natural" objects, and how we create faux objects, such as wood panelling, cartoon images, generic people in advertising, rubber ducks and camouflage, to stand in its place. These objects retain aspects of the, or "an," original significance, but there is also a sort of disjunction from the original as the significance shifts. I am trying to use mnemonic and metaphoric attributes to poetically comment on this interstitial disjunction, which again, describes a situation - a position - a present.
Ben Darrah, 2004

I would like to thank Keith Skelton and the KAC for this exhibition opportunity.