Benjamin Sandness - Artwork

Current Work

{Am I more than} the sum of...

My present body of work is fueled by my desire to understand myself. I am working to gain understanding by evaluating the parts that make up my whole. I have begun to look separately at my consciousness, roles, decisions, possessions, creations, consumption, faults, burdens, and worries. This work becomes a quest for self definition as I move beyond just inventorying these personal qualities to create images and objects that depict my experience of these qualities.

...my worries?

In my current work, I focus on identifying and depicting the experience of my worries. I make drawings and prints that depict the things I find myself worrying about. The images often include every-day objects as metaphors for the tension or conflict inherent to my worries. I focus on an emotive use of line, color, and texture as I develop these images. The subject matter and mark making work together to communicate to the viewer a sense of tension. As a result, the viewer is left with the same uneasiness that I experience through my worrying.


The Envelope	Throne Deconstructed	Regaining Control	One to the Next	Out, In	Held In, Let Out

Mended Beyond Despair I	Mended Beyond Despair II	Mended Beyond Despair IV	Left With a Bad Taste in my Mouth	Silently	Temporary Fix

Split	Homeless III	Mound of Shit	Dissolution	Dissolution DETAIL	Dissolution DETAIL

Removed	Distraction	Deficiency	Step 1	25	25 DETAIL

25 DETAIL	Part	Seven and Three Quarters	Path	Reminder	Reminder DETAIL

...my consciousness?

This work is a self-referential exploration of human awareness. The images and objects present in my drawings are derived from my streams of conscious thought. I write and draw in an attempt to record (without interrupting) my internal automatic thoughts. I use ordinary ballpoint pen or graphite to draw or write on various sizes of soft, white paper or light, unbleached fabric. The drawings are loose, with quick gestural marks made in an attempt to produce a real-time storyboard of my consciousness. As I repeat this procedure over and over, I try to identify and evaluate external influences that inform my conscious thoughts. My process is an experimental exploration of conscious thought, its progression, and its relationship to physical surroundings. I manipulate personal, technical, and environmental variables by choosing when, where, and how to transcribe my inner dialogue. The viewer is given the opportunity to engage the work with their conscious thought as they find objects, forms, or emotions in the drawings that they can relate to. A connection is temporarily made between a point in my conscious stream and that of the viewer.


January 30, 2009 - March 30, 2009	February 6, 2009	February 6, 2009	February 10, 2009	February 11, 2009	February 12, 2009

February 17, 2009	February 19, 2009	February 24, 2009	March 1, 2009	March 1, 2009 DETAIL	March 9, 2009

March 12, 2009	March 21, 2009	March 22, 2009	March 30, 2009	March 30, 2009 DETAIL	"Self Included" Gallery View

March 2, 2009	March 2, 2009	March 2, 2009	March 2, 2009 REAR DETAIL	March 2, 2009 REAR DETAIL	"Self Included" Gallery View