Benjamin Arthur Brown works across sculpture, drawing, writing and sound, with frequent deviations into other media, investigating the ‘suspended realism’ of our current state.
Brown has a rhizomatic and iterative approach to making, allowing for expansion and refinement through cycles of creation and return; accepting and galvanised by the existence of a piece in a given moment, rather than an everlasting artifact.
He often works with a combination of preexisting materials and the hand crafted - manufactured and found, industrial and organic - utilising absurdity and strangeness to tease out narratives and spark points of tension: to quote a painting by Ed Rusha, he's looking for the ‘Sand in the Vaseline’.
Most recently Brown has been interested in the intersection of sculpture, sound and performance, and how both can create opportunities for collaboration, community creation and engagement.
He is an Associate Curator at San Mei Gallery and Van Gogh House.
Brown is the creator of the performance platform ‘NOSE BLIND AND HUMMING’.
He also broadcasts a monthly radio show on RTM.fm called 'A LEG AND A CHIN'
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Education:
Slade School of Fine Art (UCL) 2013-2017
Colchester Institute 2012-2013
Prizes:
A-N (artist newsletter) Bursary 2019
Stanbury Scholarship, UCL, 2017
Commendation from Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, 2017
Stanbury Scholarship, UCL, 2014
Exhibitions
Curation:
Cycles, VGH (Van Gogh House London), 2024 _|WIND DRIFT, Filet, London 2024 _|Adjacents, Green Field Project Space, London 2024_|The Living House, VGH (Van Gogh House London), 2023_|Cement Garden, Asylum Studios, 2023
We Came Here, VGH, 2022_|Carpeted Stares, AMP Gallery, 2022_|Life and it’s most trivial particulars, VGH, 2021_|Dead Head, VGH, 2019_|Unreliable Biographers, VGH, 2019_|HOW WIDE IT WAS HOW DEEP IT WAS HOW MUCH OF IT WAS MINE TO KEEP (Curated), San Mei Gallery, 2018_|EVERYTHING WAS BEAUTIFUL AND NOTHING HURT (Curated), San Mei Gallery, 2018
Shows:
WHAT’S THE WORST THAT COULD HAPPEN? EKKM (Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia), Tallinn, Estonia 2025_|All Mouth, No Trousers, Walthamstow, London, 2025_|Take A Seat, London 2024_|Dancing About Architecture, London, 2024_|WIND DRIFT, Filet, London 2024_|Adjacents, Green Field Project Space, London 2024_|Cement Garden, Asylum Studios, Suffolk 2023_|To The Nowhere Coasting Green, Asylum studios, Suffolk 2022-|Testing Grounds, Filet, London 2022_|Forms Without Forms, Asylum Studios, Suffolk 2022_|Carpeted Stares, AMP Gallery, London 2022_|Let The Eat Fake, Bomb Factory Art Foundation, London, 2022_|Model Village, Curated by Hot Des_|Potion Room,_|Subsidiary Projects, London 2020_|Ten, Norman Rea Gallery (York University) 2019_|AfterHours, San Mei Gallery, 2019_|Creekside Open, Selected by Brian Griffiths, APT Gallery, 2019_|Artificial Heavens and Day to Day Hells, Ware Maltings, 2018_|NOW NOW (duo Show with Alex Lewis), Take Courage Gallery, London, 2018_|HOW WIDE IT WAS HOW DEEP IT WAS HOW MUCH OF IT WAS MINE TO KEEP (Curated), San Mei Gallery, 2018
EVERYTHING WAS BEAUTIFUL AND NOTHING HURT (Curated), San Mei Gallery, 2018_|Public Relations, Old Street, 2017_|Creekside Open, Selected by Jordan Baseman, APT Gallery, 2017
‘Cache Sex Karaoke’ (performer) by Simon Vincenzi, The Barbican , 2016_|MISBEHAVE, Tottenham, 2016_|NO SPACER, The MART gallery, Dublin , 2016_|and how do you feel about that?, New School House Gallery, York, 2015_|SPARKS, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, 2015_|HAVE A NO: Spread the Spoken Word, X marks the Bökship, London, 2015_|you’ve got my bone, O YES, Soho, 2015_|Doleful Shades, Crypt Gallery, Euston, 2015_|FREE BEER, Norman Rea Gallery (York University) 2014_|Ben’s Show, Camden, 2014
Publications
Rat King - 'A first few tails' 2019
Three Key Castle (with Livia Wang) 2018
FOULmouth 2016
No spacer 2016
Banana politics (editor) 2015