Ben Skinner

IBen Skinner’s practice explores the nature of language through the use of text and materiality. Calling on a vast knowledge of materials and methods, Skinner applies his hand to concepts that are by turn ironic, witty, introspective and questioning. His works often combine mechanical production methods common in sign making with traditional materials and techniques such as hand-applied gold leaf and silk marbling. His conceptual practice moves him between an expanding list of media including foil, flocking, plaster, vinyl lettering, plastics, neon and mirror. Skinner has a keen eye for finishes that borders on obsessive, resulting in highly polished works with a quasi-fetish quality. Ben lives and works in Vancouver, British Columbia. Currently showing with Winsor Art Projects in Vancouver, Herringer-Kiss in Calgary, and UpRise Art in NYC.

Ben Skinner Writes
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As a person interested in many things I have difficulty focusing
I love the blurry and the banal
I believe in the phonetics of materials and the grammar of space
I’m interested in the invisible systems of the everyday
Folk signage: KEYS CUT HERE
Estimation, approximation
and the challenge of accurate measuring
The wisdom of crowds
Old traditions of fine craftsmanship
Twisting a joke out of the mundane
Simple ideas
Semiotics for Dummies
Tactility
The subjectivity of our words
Complexity simplified and back again
Perception. The anatomy of the human eye and the science of seeing
Optical illusions
Loops, self-referentiality, pangrams
The Ridiculous The Absurd. The Nonsensical
Silly-Putty and Slinkys
Self-imposed constraints
Flooding of ideas and materials
Now less is even more
More is More
Ukeleles
Nerding out
Collecting, archiving, processing, filtering, editing
Patterns and the quest to discover them
Puzzles, magic, wonderment
Dogs, death and dopamine
Taking it and leaving it
Underlying meanings, fresh perspectives
Fun and new ways of wasting time
Holding the mustard
Growing accustomed to growing a pair
The history embodied in a rusty tool, or threadbare quilt
Skipping while frowning
Recognizing social and urban phenomena in the everyday
The peculiarities of human behaviour
Pointing at things
Grouping like things together (or unlike things)
Bouncing things against each other
Seeing what sticks
Littoral spaces
The long drive to relate to things - and missing the exit
Doing the The Hokey-Pokey to the Macarena song
Doing the Macarena to the Bird dance song
Hope and Humiliation
A passionate affinity toward all colours known and unknown
Colouring outside and reading between
Meaning in repetition