Onespace Gallery is very excited to present Night Blooms, our first opportunity to showcase a stunning new series of paintings by Brisbane artist Benjamin Werner.
Werner has developed a world of dark forest interiors that are influenced by the ‘bokeh’ photographic technique, an approach which selectively creates blurriness in certain areas. These forests are inhabited by strangely lit blooms hovering in the foreground with an electric aura. As catalogue writer Louise Martin-Chew suggests:
“Night Blooms evokes an increasingly urgent debate about human impact on the climate, yet the seductive aesthetic of these paintings parallels the lure of the technologies and substances that have proven so environmentally destructive. This paradox signifies a universal and personal conundrum…… In crystallising the artificiality of our experience, these paintings highlight the shifting balance of the natural world and the precipice on which humanity perches.”
[Benjamin Werner, Night Blooms, Louise Martin-Chew, catalogue essay, 2018]
Benjamin Werner is an Australian artist with his studio based in ‘Avalon’ in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley. This new body of work is also destined for exhibition at the Australian High Commission in Singapore in October 2018.
Werner’s practice revolves around the search for the sublime in optics and colour, borrowing from both additive and subtractive colour theories. His current practice involves oil painting, LED artworks, installations, mural/large scale wall works and ceramics; all centred on his light-based studies taken from many cities around the world.
Since completing his Honours Degree in 2004 in Fine Art at Queensland College of Art, Griffith University, he has held annual solo exhibitions of new bodies of work and has exhibited in many group shows and art prizes. His work is held in numerous private and public collections such as City of Brisbane collection, State Library of Queensland and the Mater Mothers’ Hospital.
ONExchange | Benjamin Werner and Ian Smith in Conversation:
Friday, 8 June 2018, 5:15 – 5:45pm
Opening Event: Friday, 8 June 2018, 6-8pm
Image: Benjamin Werner, X & Y In Blue, 2018, oil and acrylic on canvas, 120 x 120cm. Photo: Mick Richards.
