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ARTIST STATEMENT / BIO

 

I work with everyday subject matter such as flowers and figures, evoking a sense of movement and ephemerality through fluid lines and visible brushstrokes. I try to carry the spontaneity of drawing into the painting process. Informed by histories of baroque painting and medieval marginal art, I'm interested in compositions that .

 

My photographs incorporate personal, diaristic subject matter and are titled according to the date on which they were taken. Implicit in many of them is the replacement or burial of figurative elements through recurring motifs of shadow, blur, transparency, and reflection. 

 

My practice also extends beyond the studio; in recent years I have collaborated with musicians, scholars, and other artists, led public tours as a docent at the Met Museum, and published writings on both contemporary art and art history. 

 

I was born in Dinajpur, Bangladesh, and grew up between Dhaka and Maine. I completed my MFA in Art Practice at the School of Visual Arts in 2014, and currently live in Oakland, California with my spouse - musician Michele Kennedy - and our baby daughter.

PRICING

To inquire about buying individual artworks, please email thorpe.benjamin@gmail.com.

CV

Medieval Song from Aristotle to Opera, by Sarah Kay               2022

Artistic collaborator

Cornell University Press

 

Sita Ram's Hybrid Paintings of Nineteenth-Century India       December 2021

Essay co-authored with Abu Kalam Shamsuddin

Journal of the Asiatic Society, Dhaka, Bangladesh

The Listeners, by Ernesto Pujol                                                      June 2019

Performer

River to River Performance Festival, New York, NY

Crossings                                                                                            May 2016 to June 2018

Docent of curated highlights tour

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY

 

Remede de Fortune                                                                         May 2018

Collaborating video artist with

   early music ensemble, Concordian Dawn

The Graduate Center, New York, NY

 

Please Disturb                                                                                   February 2017

Participant in group show curated by David Ross

Midtown Hilton, New York, NY

Material Transformation in Medieval Manuscripts                      March 2016

Presenter at Early Modern Colloquium

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI

 

The Ape as a Metaphor for Art: Stowe MS 17                             March 2016

Presenter at 8th Annual Medievalists@Penn Conference

University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

 

Sign of the Ape                                                                                 September 2014

Graduate Thesis

Morgan Library Reference Collection, New York, NY

 

The Monkey Codex                                                                          August 2014

Solo Exhibition

Grace Exhibition Space, Brooklyn, NY

 

Community Board                                                                            August 2014

Participant in group show curated by Jovana Stokic

Glasshouse Project Space, Brooklyn, NY

 

Time After Us, by Ernesto Pujol                                                    October 2013

Performer

St Paul’s Chapel, New York, NY

 

Ecstasy/Apocalypse                                                                         August 2013

Participant in group show curated by Thyrza Nichols Goodeve

SVA Gallery, New York, NY

 

Current Practice                                                                               July 2013

Participant in group show curated by Hesse McGraw

Invisible Dog Gallery, Brooklyn, NY

Remnant                                                                                            June 2010

Solo exhibition curated by Elizabeth Laribee

Yellow Wall Gallery, Harrisburg, PA

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