Artist statement
Hi am Ben Dawson(he/him) i am queer artist based in east London, working between digital and physical spaces .
What does it mean to deeply contemplate the fusion between the virtual and the real, slick rendered slippages, over spilling between diametrically opposed states of existence in and out of screen-based treachery? Possessing a body is a complicated cultural condition, especially when you are not real, a non body sociopolitical agency is derived of its own transmutation, construction is dependent on its place of existence, a site digital delirium that hyper links between fiction and reality, fluxuation ensues saturation of big media (its the digital wildest baby), there is an attempt of autonomy of self in this digital non space, the Wild West as a dialect has mutated in to pixel depended condition; coexisting states between 4k reality and image imposed pastiche fording a hybridity .
Fingers gliding around a keyboard constructing digital materiality playing a pseudo god like creator, sublime iterative matter conjured out of a foolish hand. Rendering has certain proximities limited by a Mac book Air. Data has a physical weight that we rarely talk about; without a hard drive I wouldn’t be able to create as I do. Rendering research in to reality is a mode of operation, oversaturation of information yelling as nebulous networks, treating research as practice allows this paradoxical interplay between the written and digital works, digital animation doesn’t obey the known constants of physics. My rendered animations seek to centralize themselves in the uncanny valley. Digital matter has a self-reflective quality ,files sitting dormant with potential energy ready to reimagine a given cultural structure surrounding cowboys.
Postproduction is where digital infinity exists; these philosophical and existential questions of productions congeal , my own anthropological obsession with fiction as a coping mechanism acts as an analog to gesture at clarity in the Wild West. The central motif circulating around the works questions our own symptomatic digital neophilia, a yearning for some futile truth.
Artist CV
up and coming -Athens digital arts festival,featuring ARBITRARY NAMES CANT DEFINE SUCH TASTE
up and coming Trick film festival ,Dusseldof,2021
Solo show - ARBITRARY NAMES CANT DEFINE SUCH TASTE, Artsect gallery. 2021,
featured on Vicious collective
collective- https://www.viciouscollective.com/post/ben-dawson-doesn-t-know-and-neither-should-you
Fridge, Hackney wick,2021
Aire place studios, LGBTQIA postcard exhibitions ,7th circle of hell,2021
support exhibition, Hackney Wick underground, 2021
Nuha Ruby Ra "Run Run" music video ,2021
https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/ben-dawson-run-run-animation-120421
The Radford Gallery ,"Uncommon Found" 2021
CIRCA Arts -piccadilly billboard-"im calling your bluff" 30 seconds
Itsnicethat gradautes 2020 - https://www.itsnicethat.com/features/the-graduates-2020-continued-the-graduates-2020-170820
Socially distanced Peak- solo exhibition in Peak gallery of “If I show you more, am I less?” 2020
Auto:save presents:AnciantFutures in Organic cyberspace , virtual exhibition curated by GWENBA – featuring “Accepting this is your face isn’t mutually exclusive to your body” 2020
Grooks Gallery -“The rodeo never ends” 2020
Cats cradle – “once you see it, you should acknowledge it” collaborative publication with Lucy Hutchinson – 2020
Short notice curated by Julie Myers – Kingston school of art - 2020
Four corners gallery assistant, archivist and press writer- 2019-2020
Bootleg cabaret 2 – Kingston school of art avionics building 2019
Point and shoot- exhibition organized by Lena Lewis King- Kingston school of art-2019
Fifth plinth project , group leader of “image” – Kingston school of art -2020
Book-ish stanley picker gallery -2019
b.yob Kingston school of art avionic building – 2019
Auto italia- army of love Alexa Karolinski, Ingo Niermann – gallery assistant and intern -2019
Poetry and story telling;home st johns Hampton wick 2019
Babys ballad performance organized by Chloe Webster- performer Kingston school of art 2019
Whitechapel gallery -Sophia Al-Maria: BCE – gallery assistant / volunteer - 2019
Auto Italia - Unorganised Response gallery assistant and intern – 2019
Tate exchange – Inventory behaviors – performer and participant - 2019
Stanley Picker travel award winner 2019
Telling tales – collaborative project with Rachel Povey - 2019
The auction house - Kingston school of art avionic building – 2019
Beam me up – Kingston school of art avionic building - 2019
All you can readt - Stanley Picker Gallery 2018
UWTSD Digital residancey - 2018
Flotsom - Asylum Peckham - 2018
Cumbersome -Kingston School of Art 2018
Stope -Safe house 1 Peckham 2018
Work Work TinType gallery – performer for Harold Offeh
71 Days - Kingston School of Art 2017
Elysiumgallery/studio summer open- Elysium gallery 2017
The Jane Phillips Award recipient UWTS Swansea 2017
Education
BA fine art, Kingston School of Art – 2017- 2020
Foundation diploma UWTSD 2016 -2017
Publications
If I show you more, am I less ? – Artist book in collaboration with Ian Nabong -2020, edition of 25 produced
Work featured on Sad grads instergram post – 2020
Work featured on Quarantinedream2020 - 2020
Toothace zine – 2019/2020
Work featured Backlogzine Instergram - 2020
Codes and cocks -2019
I made your body so I could edit you -10 editions -2019
A year on film- editions- 2018
Skills
Photography
3D rendering/VR environment building and ARface filters
Art Direction
Video editing
Sound editing
please feel free to add my google dox and continue talking about cowbows
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZPb-m_kjbLJlnjUU20tpVHaWK6S3CdvABEr8VZ8PNdg/edit
