“I consider the space of painting (verb and noun) as a reflective space that engages cultural, material and personal experience. I work with painting as a process of thought. I believe that the physicality of the work and its indexicality of painted marks and gestures (subtle touches, rough scumbles, offhanded smears and studied glazes, etc.) vicariously open this exploratory thinking to an audience.

I am interested in the physiology of perception and how it is personally and culturally codified. My work considers how the world is realized through pictures: that how we picture the world (and how we are taught to picture the world) is how the world becomes. And I consider that if the resolution of a painting-object can be delayed and the process of perception is held open, a maker/viewer may discover agency there. For me the experience of making and looking at the painted object are intimately aligned with the scenes and experiences that I represent. This is a productive alignment. I confuse and equate the space of painting with the space of the world.

The painted image for this work is a view through trees (on the border of urban and ‘natural’ spaces) of Burrard Inlet at the start of səli̓lw̓ət (Indian Arm). It is seen from an imaginary vantage point: a view that doesn’t exist. It is either dusk or dawn and so is unfixed in time as well as place. This work is intended to provide space for reflection, outside of work and daily tasks: an interstitial moment to get lost in. The painting is dramatically enlarged and backlit. Its installation on the building’s soffit is parallel to the ground. The final scale, glow and placement add to a sense of disorientation, offering an hallucinatory respite from the everyday.”

-- Ben Reeves, 2020

Ben Reeves holds a BFA from the University of British Columbia and an MA from Chelsea College, London. He has held positions as Lecturer at UBC; and Assistant Professor at the University of Western Ontario and at the University of Guelph. He has taught at Emily Carr University since 2006 in the Jake Kerr Faculty of Graduate Studies and the Audain Faculty of Art. He was Head of Painting at the University of Guelph and for a year was Head of Painting and Drawing at ECUAD where he is currently Associate Professor and Assistant Dean, Curriculum, in the Audain Faculty of Art.

Ben has exhibited widely in Canada as well as in China, the U.S. and England. His work has been featured on the cover of Canadian Art and reviewed in publications across Canada, His work is in collections of the Vancouver Art Gallery; National Gallery of Canada; Musée des Beaux Arts, Montreal; Museum London; Surrey Art Gallery; Canadian Department of Global Affairs; and Canada Council. He has received grants from Canada Council, Ontario Arts Council and BC Arts Council. His work is represented by the Equinox Gallery in Vancouver and the Nicholas Metivier Gallery in Toronto.