Signposts/Speculations

I want to say a BIG Thank you to Ben Browne for being the first Artist to display at the Arthouse. Your work have been very much appreciated here! We've loved the professional display and contemporary ambiguity. We only regret that you Ben were not here to share it with us.

Originally from Southern Idaho, Browne lives and works in Boise where he studies Visual Art and History at Boise State University.
For all of you who missed the exhibit you can visit his website www.benrbrowne.com


For Ben Browne, art began as an activity falling somewhere between visual exploration and obsessive pass-time. While his processes and perception may have changed considerably, these definitions are still both integral and informative to his studio practice. With special attention paid to the minutiae of life in a world inundated with fast images, weird objects, and ambiguous spaces, Browne's work is driven by a curiosity about the multiple ways that humans reconcile relationships between themselves and their surroundings, and the inquisitive power of art to complicate this task.

Artist Statement

My work is driven by curiosity about objects, environments and the many ways that humans reconcile the relationship between the two. A fascination with inanimate objects and the mundane has been constant in my work as well as an interest in technical visual languages and modes of representation. The first two function as unexpected elements within a larger framework that asks subtle, more profound questions about how well we know--or if we can ever know--ourselves and our surroundings. Recent research has focused on technical imaging processes and conventions of pictorial construction ranging from Photo Realism to Abstraction to create works that use ambiguity to question structures that rationalize space and relationships therein. Most recently I have utilized obsessive, time-sensitive, and often layered processes that draw the viewer to look closer and spend time with the work, my hope is that these simple questions will develop into larger, more penetrating questions that keep the viewer engaged in and are applicable to the world around them.