Ben K. Voss: Springs

Ben K. Voss makes paintings that could fit in your arms. They are similar to the size of an open book and take on the colors of worn paper, newspapers and the sky at twilight or sunset. At first glance, the paintings appear startlingly simple, but on closer inspection each one radiates their own presence and complexity. Voss begins the paintings with coating the stretched gessoed canvas with a fiber paste resulting in a surface reminiscent of walls, frescoes and paper. Dependent on how the paste is laid down, various indentations, ridges and marks will form, dislocating the viewer from the canvas’s weave and emphasizing the painting as an object. Voss then begins a process of layering colors, often one at a time, with a water-based pigment. While the paint is wet, drawing is implemented across the surface with a soft graphite pencil of marks that are suggestive of handwriting, diagrams and musical notations or scores. During this process of drawing into the wet paint, it is difficult to see the line that is being inscribed and Voss likens it to drawing in the dark or with ones eyes closed. After several minutes, as the paint settles and dries, the graphite is captured into the surface. This process is then repeated until the surface, colors and mark-making result in an object that as Voss states, “becomes unknown to me, surprising and materializes as an open object”.

These pared down parameters of working in the same size and essentially with one color and pencil simultaneously focuses and expands the work. At times, the rules are broken as in the painting, Sür, which goes beyond one color to depict a brushy wash of golden yellow, grey purple and pink. In another painting, Ra, an absorbent dark, dusty pink horizontal band lays on the bottom like a horizon. Each painting fluctuates within a range of airy spaciousness to monochromatic, tabula rasa-like density. Seen as a group, the paintings form a constellation pushing and pulling the viewer into a space that feels like a world becoming, a zone of the preliminary and the notational. Voss ruminates on such questions as What is the relationship between making a world and making a language? Can drawing, thinking and writing merge into one kind of energy?

The script-like drawing comes from an evolution of sketches that began in small books starting in 2017 that emphasized repeated marks and patterns. The drawings in the books are not used as reference for the paintings, but as a form of practice in order to maintain a momentum and flow so when in the studio, painting and drawing are prone to come about more naturally and freely without any kind of analytical thought or planning. This head space is influenced by Eastern concepts of emptiness and concentration and Western notions of ‘flow-states’, often spoken about within the contexts of sports and athletes. Additionally the automatic drawings by Hilma af Klint in the beginnings of the 20th century and the seriality and repetition of On Kawara also serve as guides.

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Book release & Exhibition: Ben K. Voss Springs, Saturday, September 7, 1 pm

The publication Springs by Ben K. Voss contains a collection of watercolors made along the shores of Lake Michigan in July of 2023: The lake presented itself anew with the arrival of each day. Wild waves cascaded at a diagonal and then, quietly, the water’s surface became a mirror. Days marked moods and energies. Tall wavering pines dotted the coastline as light filtered in through shapes and forms. The publication reflects on this interplay of change and repetition and invites viewers to uncover nuances and details with each viewing.

About the publisher:

Mark Pezinger Books, a Vienna-based publisher of artist books, is run by graphic designer Astrid Seme and artist Thomas Geiger. On the occasion of the book launch, they will present a selection of their publications that deal with experimental and conceptual approaches. Come along and take a look at the collection! Come by and browse the books.