Ben Butler’s sculptures and drawings are contemplations on our relationship to the natural world. Drawing from diverse influences—musical composition, Chinese scholars’ rocks, and emergence theory—he generates forms that evoke simultaneously human design and natural growth. Butler’s new installation, Elegy to the Disappearance of Objects, is an exploration of these themes on a colossal scale. A grand and enigmatic form hovers above the viewer, suspended by an intricate and seemingly fragile wooden framework. It is segmented and richly textured, rhythmic yet amorphous. A strong sense of time and process pervades the artwork, as the structure seems to be at once both emerging and dissolving.
Ben Butler Exhibition, Main Gallery, Turchin Center
Cloud, 2010
Ben Butler is interested in the natural world. “I look at the natural sciences as one example of how we interact with our world and understand it,” he says. “And really at the root, my work is about understanding the world.”
To learn more about Ben’s process check out Crosstown Arts video Ben Butler: CLOUD MORPHOLOGY.
About the artist
Ben Butler received his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and his BA from Bowdoin College. His work has been exhibited in solo shows in New York at Coleman Burke Gallery and Plane Space, as well as at Zg Gallery in Chicago, John Davis Gallery in Husdon, New York, and Davidson Galleries in Seattle, among others. He is the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Individual Artist Grant and numerous fellowships at residency programs including the MacDowell Colony, The Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, and the Ucross Foundation. He currently lives and works in Memphis, Tennessee and Quogue, New York, and is an Assistant Professor of Art at Rhodes College.
Additional resources
- Flickr – Installation images
- Ben Butler – Official Website