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Gallery featuring local and nationally known artists, and North Carolina’s premier custom picture framers.
Ben Bridgers’ work explores “magic, mystery and the perversity of nature,” while his process stays rooted in classical materials and methods. He has maintained an active studio practice for more than 30 years, while continuing his career as an art educator and museum professional. He currently works at the North Carolina Museum of Art as the Manager of Park Collection and Exhibitions.
Bridgers’s earliest influences were the underground scenes of skateboarding and punk music. “Skateboarding in the 1980’s was raw, illegal, and generally, unaccepted,” says Bridgers. “As a teenager, I would occasionally ditch school, go skate, and spend part of my day at the local art museum, to wander the galleries. At the time I wasn’t familiar with art history, but those paintings were more interesting than anything else going on”. Eventually, through his younger years and into formal education, these influences merged with a greater understanding of art and art history. The result is expertly rendered scenes of dreamlike subject matter. Each painting features forms that seem almost recognizable, but the compositions follow only their own surreal internal logic. Objects are rendered with detail and technique reminiscent of the old masters, making use of dramatic light and shadow. Ben sees his work as an exploration of “transitory events such as home, landscape, migration, love, loss, absence, and how these themes relate to the natural compulsion to continue”.
Ben Bridgers grew up in the rural farming community of Pilot, North Carolina. He earned an MFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of Georgia’s Lamar Dodd School of Art in Athens and studied and taught at the university’s campus in Cortona, Italy. He was an Associate Professor of Art in Painting and Drawing at the University of Redlands in California before returning to North Carolina in 2012.
OPENING SEPTEMBER 21, 2024
