Fish Fry & Cigarette Smoke Painting

Ben Boothby, now resides in Portland Maine, happy to be home after 20 years of living out-of-state. That time away concluded with 9 years in Bushwick, Brooklyn. His paintings have been exhibited in NYC, nationally, and in Europe. He received his BA in Studio Art from Wesleyan University, Connecticut, in 1997. He earned his MFA from The Academy of Art University, San Francisco, in 2011. In the gap between degree programs he lived in DC, Iceland, and Oakland. From 2012 to 2019 he taught abstract painting for the Academy's online graduate fine art department. Now Ben is turning his attention to full time art production in his studio at Running With Scissors, in Portland. ....................................................................... Statement:___________________________ My paintings are built entirely from memories of architectural moments. They are mnemonic structures; holding a multitude of conflicting emotions from that place. Memory is a construction: layers of spatial ambiguities and shifting degrees of focus, scattered with representational details. I strive for this visualization of how memory exists, because I feel it shows how our minds actually function, on a cellular and chemical level. Memory is in flux, when we try to pin it down to examine the details, it will not sit still. Gestural splatters and hard edged abstraction are combined to create a complex visual puzzle. The goal is to capture the pulsation of memory vibrating in self-contradictions. While these paintings are made out of moments from my own narrative, they are left open to each viewer's personal associations. I hope to engage a viewer’s sense of nostalgia, as well as their curiosity. When they try to make sense of the space in the image, they will access spatial information from their own memories. Then the painting fulfills its purpose as a visualization of memory. .......................................................................... Process:______________________________ My process starts with rounds of sketching, using only what I can remember about a space from my past. I do not use any external reference to reconstruct that place. The next stage is a 3 point perspective drawing, where the memory meets logic, and becomes a concrete structure.