We are drawn to places and survey them using a variety of perspectives and layers of abstraction. Something about a place draws us there, and we return through interpretation and abstraction, each time bringing more complexity, clarity, or meaning to the surface. We may return to ground-truth, or simply experience a remotely-sensed environment, depicting the peculiarities of it in different ways. Or we may return to a place through remote sensing. Artists have more information available to them than ever before, with more methods for access and visualization, so “realism” through an artist’s lens is a function of more variables than before. No one has the same sense of reality, regardless of their proximity or path. Is reality “augmented” in this manner, or is what you see simply an artist’s realistic interpretation of a place? Ultimately, the place we represent may not be real, but our idea of a place that's a product of interpretation and abstraction. The artwork develops through layering, juxtaposition, and re-rendering.
W. Benjamin Bray embarks on purposeful ventures that logical representation would discourage. His artwork involves travel, data, sound, video, glass, and water, in various combinations.
He has exhibited works in Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, Texas, Maine and Japan and completed residencies in Svalbard, Norway and at Vermont Studio Center. Bray is the recipient of artist grants from the MIT Arts Council, Vermont Studio Center, Corning Museum of Glass, Artist's Resource Trust, and a research grant from the National Science Foundation.
Bray holds an MS in Atmospheric Science and Oceanography from Penn State University, and a BS in Atmospheric Science from Texas A&M University. He has studied independently at Corning Museum of Glass, Haystack Mountain School of Craft, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, and Boston University.