About

“Ben Readman is an artist who makes work that encourages a protracted consideration of our scientific, sociological, philosophical, ethical and poetic relationship with the natural world. He seeks to address this complex interdependency that is a mix of control, confusion, destruction, preservation, admiration, wonder and awe” (Garry 2010). Awe (definition) An emotion variously combining dread, veneration, and wonder that is inspired by authority or by the sacred or sublime Biophilia (The sacred) and the Sublime. My artwork engages with the Biophilia hypothesis, which suggests that humans have an inherent tendency to seek connections with nature and other forms of life (Rogers 2019). In the technological age that we live in; we have become disconnected with this and a distorted, dysfunctional, fractured relationship with nature has emerged. I hope that my work will encourage readers to reconnect with this innate disposition that links humankind’s survival to valuing living systems, to nourish our capacity for wonder, and to rekindle what Erich Fromm, who coined the term ‘Biophilia’ described as “the passionate love of life and all that is alive… the wish to further growth, whether in a person, a plant, an idea, or a social group” (2013 :1059) Another theme that I focus on is the notion of the Sublime, a complex term that evades a simple definition, most often used in philosophical terms to describe our emotional reaction to awesome, chaotic, and limitless natural phenomena, things that are too large or complex to fully comprehend. Something which Kant believed “may be regarded as completely lacking in form or figure”(Kant 1973: 109). The term first used by Edmund Burke to describe “the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling” (2016 :43). The sublime is a mind and body experience that makes us astonished, terrified, energised and insignificant, as opposed to the beautiful, which is ‘pleasing’ and leads to tranquillity. “Beauty comforts and calms, Sublimity excites and agitates” (Zizek 2009 :221). Experiencing the sublime can have a corrective quality in our everyday lives. When we become small compared to the immensity of something sublime, our ego and pride shrink, this brings potential for us to “be moved to be more tolerant–less wrapped up in our own concerns” (The School of Life 2016). For example, when confronted with traumatic or upsetting situations, we may have the urge to restore perspective by staring at the vast ocean, getting lost in an immense forest, or running in a thunderstorm. “Wilderness settles peace on the soul because it needs no help; it is beyond human contrivance” (Wilson 2001: 771). These universal themes flatten time. I do not ground my images in the immediate past, present, or future. They fluctuate between the micro and the macro, the external and the internal, the forensic and the vast. My interest is not to realise an accurate visual representation of the sublime. It is not to foreground the individual, as was Caspar David Friedrich’s intention. Nor is it an attempt to paint it in abstract terms. I consider my artwork to be figurative, not abstract, by this I mean that the elements within the pictures are of the phenomenal world, they depend on our world to exist, unlike Kandinsky, who preferred elements that didn’t need an environment (1982: 775). I wish to enhance the narrative possibilities and to create artworks that deal with sublime in a less direct manner, framed within our quotidian and subjective internal experience. Landscapes and objects are present, people may also be, but may not be not fully recognisable. Environments will be both familiar and alien, neither photorealistic, nor abstract. I will aim for fluidity, but with tension: as though we are about to witness something transformative happen. I will present a scenario, a thematic, and it is to the reader to decide what this means to them. Titles are significant conceptual elements. They are deliberately not didactic. Instead, they act as a key to open further narrative options and encourages multiple interpretation from viewers.