W. Benjamin Bray

Artist Statement

March 25, 2011

Psychology, jet engines, oceanography, Tahiti, and physics are a few of the players in what has been a refreshing period of intermittent revelations, ideas, exhibitions and purposelessness. The second half of the last decade featured works rooted in Existentialism and Surrealism, such as "Coasts" (2006), and the "Modes of Departure" series (2008-09). These installations addressed cycles of flux, transiency and nostalgia in society, and also relationships involving 3D glass form serving as both a projection surface and acoustical body for sound.

Works like "Rendition Engine" (2010) and "Lens Effects" (2010) grew from Situationist topics prevalent in contemporary art, such as "experimental geography". Whereas earlier works presented applications of personal psychology in the context the Boston community, and transient communities in general, "Rendition Engine" was an iconographic interpretation of Extraordinary Rendition, presenting in sculptural form the singular psychological experience of someone else as they suffer the effects of cultural conflict.

My current work is comprised of essays and sculpture confronting "boundaries" to human proliferation, between land/ocean, tropical/arctic regions, and finite/infinite. A realization of a personal trajectory towards the northern coasts led to questioning about what attracts humans to such locations, what they represent, and what's happening to these environments as a result of human activity. "Expanding Tahiti" is the first work drawn from this current project.

My M.S. thesis in graduate school presented an atmosphere/ocean circulation model for determining atmospheric oxygen levels 4.5 billion years ago, and was preceded and followed by studies in music, glass, acoustics, optics, and conceptual art.

Writing / Press / Sounds

Cirriculum Vitae

"Video in Sculpture" W. Benjamin Bray, 2008

"DEPARTURE : The Peanuts Ain't Free These Days"
John Barera, Weekly Dig, Aug 2008

"Sailing North" __ mov __ mp3
"Sax Solos" __ mp3
"Trilight!" __ mov __ mp3

Exhibitions and Residencies

2011 Oct - Mediating Place, UMass-Boston, Boston, MA

2011 Sept-Oct - The Arctic Circle Residency, Svalbard, Norway

2011 Feb - Collision XVI, Axiom Gallery for New and Experimental Media, Boston, MA

2010 Mar - Collision XV, Axiom Gallery for New and Experimental Media, Boston, MA

2009 - present - Somerville, MA Open Studios

2009 Jun - How Is This Glass? Of Post-Glass Artists and Glass Guerillas, Corning, NY