Ben Watkins

Providence, Rhode Island

GRAZE

2007

MDF, Inlaid Dowels & Oil Paint

48” X 15”

Photo credit: Mark Johnston

“I am always looking for the moment when something changes or shifts. Because I am fascinated by the fluidity and possibility of one thing becoming another and the movement inherent in that kind of transition, I see the makings of beginnings or endings around me continually, and that is a large part of what informs my work. I see that moment in the tiny microcosm of our individual cells all the way to the vast macrocosm of the universe. I think about linear time versus all of time. I think of a line as a timeline, one that affects space and surface: it divides, defines, separates, and travels through a surface. I want the viewer to see these relationships and how line embodies the transitional moment. I want to draw a viewer in, so I try to use seductive forms and materials. I want the viewer to want to touch the art. When I say that I don’t want the viewer to see me in the artwork, I am admitting that I am in love with the object. The art and movement is in the object, and I am not so much turning the object into art as revealing how the object is already art. I want the viewer to just come upon the object like walking upon a beautiful view. It is their discovery. “