PR recently visited painter Benjamin King in his Sunset Park studio. King merges themes of abstract expression and landscape into capturing the essence of nature through serene and volatile paintings. Transforming paint into crust-like, earthy surfaces and atmospheres that push against each other, King blurs the distinction between surface and illusion.

Mist River Bottom, 2010
acrylic on canvas, 24” x 24”

Overlapping Hills, 2010
acrylic on canvas, 9” x 12”

King's talents extend beyond his own painting. Along with Jay Henderson, he co-founded HKJB, an artist-run curatorial group that focuses on roving guerrilla-style shows. King does not separate his painting and curatorial projects. He sees them coming from the same place, informing and opening new ideas to each other. The shows are tightly curated and have become meeting places for artists in New York and beyond.

brushes on studio floor

mixed paint on floor

King admits that he is a painter that has an unabashed relationship to nature, absorbing the places, feelings and textures found in the wilderness. It's surprising to see a young artist making contemporary paintings and not making reference to Pop Art or contemporary culture. That is not to say that these paintings are retro - they bring forth questions we may never ask ourselves in contemporary life.

Grey Hill, 2009
acrylic on canvas, 20” x 24”

Untitles, 2009
acrylic on canvas, 24” x 20”

In is own words: "I bully and beg my way through these paintings. The process is extremely improvisational within a finite set of rules. Snow is white, trees are brown, gray, rivers are blue, there are no humans or technology. My intention is not to depict something seen, but to create approximations of seen things, then combine them in ways that have overlapping meaning. I feel like this translation is a way to make things that outwardly seem familiar, but upon further inspection become very unfamiliar."

studio chair and paintings

studio stool and buckets

Wet Sticks, 2010
acrylic on canvas, 24” x 24”

brushes and photo

Drifts, 2009
acrylic on canvas, 60” x 68”

WHITE SPARKLE, 2010
acrylic on canvas, 94” x 72”

untitled, 2009
acrylic on canvas, 14” x 14”

drawings on table

Past exhibitions include It's My World Baer Ridgway Exhibitions, San Francisco, CA. Bushwick Schlact Fortress to Solitude , New York, NY . Seasonal Pictures ACME, Los Angeles, CA .

-Kris Chatterson, 08.26.10