About Ben Gooding
One of the central concerns of my work is the idea that great complexity is derived from great simplicity. This "bottom-up" approach is analogous to materialist theories that powerfully describe the natural phenomena we observe in the world from the molecular to the cosmological.
I'm interested in how an underpinning system based on a few basic parameters can generate something that is visually complex and highly intricate, but is borne out of a highly reductive process.
Using simple mathematical devices such as iterative sequences, repeated geometric motifs and varying particular numerical values of integers and angles, a structure will emerge that is bounded by and existent upon these principles. A visual aggregate of the system that defines it.
Often the initial act will be to make an automatic line by hand that describes the spontaneity of a direct and unmeasured moment. The instancy of this mark acts in relief to the highly methodical and deterministic nature of the process it then undergoes.
These dichotomies hang in tension with each other, the one a tacit recognition of the "artist's hand", the other concerned with the pure and detached language of mathematics. The work is simultaneously reliant upon and informed by the unpredictability of one thing and the rigidity of the other.
Events:
2015 - Catalogue text published for the exhibition
"Perfectionism: Part II", curated by Rebecca
Pelly-Fry at the Griffin Gallery, London.
2015 - Interview with the artist Duncan Bullen for
Saturation Point Projects.
2015 - Catalogue published to accompany the
Saturation Point Projects group exhibition
"From Centre".
2015 - Interview with the artist Wendy Smith for
Saturation Point Projects.
2015 - Catalogue for "The Determined Line", a solo
show at the Residence Gallery, London.
2013 - Catalogue text written to accompany the
exhibition "When Contents Become Form",
for the artist Jeannie Driver at Arebyte
Gallery, London.
2013 - Interview with FAD Website for the 2013
Other Art Fair.
2012 - Interview with FAD Website for the 2012
Other Art Fair.
2011 - Interview with Francesca Baker for
Who's Jack Magazine...
2006 - Artist residency at King's College,
Cambridge.
2005 - Award for contemporary print from the
Royal Society for Painter/Printmakers.
Exhibitions:
Forthcoming Exhibitions...
2018. "In Line" - a group show by Saturation Point Projects at the Griffin Gallery, London...
Current Exhibition...
2016. "Platform 10" - at the Leydon Gallery,
London... 13th to the 23rd of April...
Selected Exhibitions...
2015. "From Centre" - co-curated by Saturation Point
Projects and Slate Projects, at the Loud and
Western Building, Fulham, London.
2015. Battersea Affordable Art Fair, with the
representation of Gas Gallery. March, 2015.
2015. "The Determined Line" - Solo exhibition at the
Residence Gallery, London. Curated by Ingrid
Zee. March 6th - April 19th.
2014. "Neo Craft" - guest curated by Agnese
Reginaldo at Arebyte Gallery, London.
2014. "Library", private members club launch
exhibition, curated by Art Naked, Covent
Garden, London...
2014. "A Given Structure" - curated by Oliver Adams
as part of the Fringe Arts Bath 2014
summer programme, Bath.
2014. Clerkenwell Design Fair, represented by Gas
Gallery at Dreamspace Gallery, London.
2013. The Affordable Art Fair Battersea, with the
representation of Eleni Duke.
2013. The Affordable Art Fair Hampstead, with the
representation of Gas Gallery...
2013. The Other Art Fair 2013, Ambika P3, London.
2013. The Bristol Affordable Art Fair, with the
representation of Eleni Duke.
2013. "Finish Fetish" three person show at the
Residence Gallery in East London.
2013. "Finish Fetish" - curated by Ingrid Zee of The
Residence Gallery, at the Art Projects section
of the London Art Fair.
2012. Affordable Art Fair, representation by Eleni
Duke, Battersea Park, London.
2012. New Artist Fair, The Truman Brewery, London.
2012. "Cork Street Open" - Cork St Gallery, London.
2012. The Other Art Fair - Ambika P3, London.
2012. "Formation" - curated by Caroline Jane
Harris and Nimrod Vardi, Arbyte Gallery,
London.
2012. "Stable States" - Cultivate Gallery, London.
2011. "Extentions" - curated by Eleni Duke Gallery,
Curious Duke Gallery, London.
2011. "Cork Street Open" - Cork St Gallery, London.
2010. "The Other Side" - Parfitt Gallery, London.
2008. Ma Final Show - Concourse Gallery, London.
2007. Ma Interim Show - Concourse Gallery, London.
2006. "Spherical Void" - studio residency at
Kings College Cambridge.
2005. "Five Graduates" - Kings College Arts Centre,
Cambridge.
2004. Degree Show - Candid Arts Centre, London.
2003. "Cambridge University Open" - Cambridge.
2003. "Unbound" - R K Burt Gallery, London.
