Bruised Memories

Benjamin Staker

November 4, 2021 - January 23, 2022

Castellain Gallery is pleased to present Bruised Memories by Benjamin Staker. This exhibition features work of various media that blur the lines between figure painting and free association. Staker unweaves recognizable forms and language alike to reconstruct a new visual lexicon, one that is simultaneously vibrant, visceral, and imbued with undercurrents of the unconscious.

Bruised Memories features an array of paintings that expand on Staker’s interest in human figures as well as the most salient of human experiences, suffering. His subjects—solitary but often repeatedly cloned and warped into golem-like totems—are devoid of identity, speaking to the idea of a collective consciousness. They hint at religious transcendence, but a harsh sort, as hands twist about, suggesting the act of praying or, perhaps, pleading. At the crux of Staker’s work one finds an exploration of universalities through a refined individual perspective where intimate moments are exuberantly hued and reflected back at the viewer.

Stakers’s process acts as a portal into the depths of our own inaccessible minds. He manifests feelings of dissociation and fear while simultaneously bringing to light the tension between the real and surreal. An underdrawing of pastel or charcoal gets distorted with violent gestural strokes, splashes of paint, and layers of varnish; each an exercise in the physicality of Staker’s mark making. This collision of materials is not unlike the collision of particles in quantum physics, wherein inferences, which were previously unknown, are now drawn from remaining fragments. In Staker’s own process of constructive destruction, text unravels to take on the role of an abstract thread between limbs and psychological landscapes. They connect and encompass the rhythms of bodies and bold swatches of color, ultimately unearthing what lies at the core of human experience.

Benjamin Staker (b. 1994, Ann Arbor MI) is a New York based artist and writer. He attended the University of Washington, receiving a BA in Interdisciplinary Visual Arts and Art History in 2014. Staker has exhibited at Trestle Gallery and at Ethan Cohen Kunsthalle Beacon. He has recently completed two residencies at Trestle Art Space and Carrie Able Gallery and is currently pursuing an MFA at the New York Academy of Art (class of 2023).

For additional information or to schedule an appointment please email at info@castellaingallery.com