Today we’d like to introduce you to Benjamin Sack.
Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
Under the Californian sun I picked up a crayon at a tender age, like many when a toddler, and have continued to scribble, scratch and sketch across the globe ever since. In Kindergarten, with the endless Pacific horizon always in view, for hours I would lose myself in drawing, my pages crawling with block-like people and animals; from a budding age it seems I had a disposition for rendering the world in geometric forms. From this intuitive, archaic geometry I contrived a kind of proto-perspective, not entirely unrelated to that on the caves or in many a’ Pharaohs’ tomb.
From this, my love, appreciation and curiosity grew for and towards exploring more complex forms all the while playing with, breaking and expounding upon my own “laws” of perspective; my eye and mind eventually finding great pleasure in studying maps (of everything) and inventing new cities and worlds.
Born in California, raised in Virginia, my art has since carried me across the globe to nearly 80 countries, a majority of these wondrous places were visited while I was the four-time artist-in-residence aboard the MS AMSTERDAM, a vessel that circumnavigates the globe during a four-month odyssey each year. Hence, I or my drawings are always venturing towards an infinite horizon, whether it be earth, ocean, urban or mind.
Please tell us about your art.
In short, I’m creating a universe, a personal one. Inspired by the micro and macroscopic worlds and systems that make our own cosmos. I derive immense pleasure in exploring the rhyming shapes, patterns and history that arise in seemingly dissimilar disciplines of understanding and matter; within music, cities, stars, shells and consciousness. For instance, the classical spiraling loop that galaxies and flowers assume also arises within fugues, visual paradoxes, and the beautiful chaos our atmosphere and oceans dance out in storms, currents and upon the wings of birds.
This personal universe is coded in the language of architecture (classical, cultural, modern and contemporary). For me, buildings become literal building blocks, similar to cells and atoms, that as a whole, employed ad infinitum, spell out a cosmos.
Through this exploration of architecture as medium, a unique space between the realistic and abstract can be expressed; where interpretation and our ability to create meaning is in flux. Within this space, I seek to encapsulate both the infinite and the infinitesimal, inviting the eye to gaze into a kaleidoscope of histories and to look further into the elemental world of lines and dots.
Choosing a creative or artistic path comes with many financial challenges. Any advice for those struggling to focus on their artwork due to financial concerns?
Nulla dies sine linea — “No Day Without A Line” – said Apelles, Michelangelo, Beethoven and van Gogh.
I know, Apelles was greek, but Michelangelo wrote the phrase in Latin and he’s the one that most inspires me.
All of the above aforementioned had their own struggles, financial being a burden in all cases at times, however, they persevered, created and our immortally remembered for it. Remembering to create something every day, no matter the scale or ambition adds up. Success is in the work!
Also, it’s important to define your own vision of success. That word varies between everyone. Some visions of success require more time and sacrifice than others. But again, your joy, in large part, can and should come from the act of working on your art, whatever it may be.
How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
Robert Fontaine Gallery in Miami: https://www.robertfontainegallery.com/ben-sack
Galeria Ethra in Mexico City: http://www.galeriaethra.com/index.php/artistas/
Johanssen Gallery in Berlin: https://www.johanssen-gallery.com/gallery-artists/ben-sack/
Instagram: @ibensack
Contact Info:
- Website: bensackart.com
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: ibensack
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bensackart/
- Twitter: @ibensack
Image Credit:
Marina Denisova : http://www.marina-denisova.com.
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