Artist statement

 

Hi am Ben Dawson(he/him) i am queer artist based in east London, working between digital and physical spaces .

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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 .

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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.

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Artist CV

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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, 

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featured on Vicious collective

collective- https://www.viciouscollective.com/post/ben-dawson-doesn-t-know-and-neither-should-you

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Fridge, Hackney wick,2021

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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

 

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