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Ben Dallas

EDUCATION:

B.A. History of Art, Indiana University 1969

M.A. History of Art, University of Illinois 1971

SELECT EXHIBITIONS:

Solo:

Ben Dallas — Sculptural Paintings, Elizabeth Leach Gallery, Portland OR, May 2019

Ben Dallas —Serials, Elizabeth Leach Gallery, Portland OR, Sept. 2015

Ben Dallas, OK Harris, NYC, 2013/14

Breaking Even/ Serial Works by Ben Dallas

Michelle Litvin In Process Space, Chicago, IL 2008

Ben Dallas/ Serial Works, LIPA Gallery, Chicago, IL 2006

2 / 3 Person:

Confluence: Ben Dallas and Jonathan Parker, Pie Projects, Santa Fe, NM January 28 - February 18, 2023

Ben Dallas/Gordon Powell, 251 Gallery, Chicago, IL,  2013

SELECT GROUP:

 Beyond Representation: Seeking New Forms- Dallas, Havlis, Kronquist, Roberts

Lewis University Jan 6-Mar 16, 2023

 Still, South Broadway Cultural Center, Albuquerque, NM  June/July 2022

 Art Talks, Bridgeport Art Center, Chicago, IL,  Nov. 2021

 You Know You Know,  Wright Gallery, Northport, MI, Summer 2021

 Neo Geo Now, Ben Dallas, Eric Garfunkel’s, Damian Hoar de Galvan,

Ylise Kessler Gallery - Inaugural Exhibition, Santa Fe, NM, Mar/Ap, 2019

 Signs of Light, Institute for Human Creativity, Oct. 2018-April 2019,  Tahoe, CA

Ben Dallas | constructed paintings

My intention as a visual artist is to defy conventions and invent new aesthetic relationships. The challenges presented by the resulting, autonomous, and perhaps even perplexing visual objects, have the potential to reorient viewers to their own processes of perception and thought. My dimensional art works are neither informative nor symbolic; they’re not about something - they are something. At their best they demand attention, invite contemplation, and direct viewers in some significant way to experience responses beyond the familiar and automatic. My works are intended to hush the hasty understandings and resolutions which identification and recognizable narratives demand and fix.

 The aesthetic results I pursue are found within the possibilities offered by the materials and processes I employ. I normally pre-make painted components then look to find preferred combinations of these painted surfaces with other materials. This results in a physical structure unifying surfaces and foundation as one aesthetic expression. With little planning this spontaneous and intuitive process encourages and ensures usable accidents and surprises leading to the less predictable effects I’m after.

 I make serial imagery by producing bodies of works which are each comprised of a shared aspect of visual identity - similarity, not sameness. I continue to produce works in a serial category until either possibilities are exhausted or some idea for a new visual commonality presents itself. My continual experimentation normally results in some piece exhibiting a notable characteristic worthy for repeating in additional works. I create this way not to laud similarity but to emphasize and demonstrate the reality of difference and uniqueness within a group of similar things, qualities specific to the individual. The serial nature of my works is always secondary to their singularity as objects.

Ben Dallas July, 2023