BENJAMIN DEGEN: In Waves

Employing extensive mark-making and fluid touches, Benjamin Degen describes a human presence. As the paint darts across the canvas or the ink is actively applied to paper, we move through the landscape while the landscape moves through us. Degen's act of looking becomes a way for us to see ourselves, within a moment, connected to this world.

A nude female leads her companion towards the shoreline. Her body is rendered in light, sparkling against the dense brushstroke of land and sea. Formally, Degen’s active brushwork conveys a natural energy: the ripples of ocean water and light radiating from the stars. This road-like reflection of the moon across the water is called a mångata and appears in several of the artist’s paintings. Here, it serves to draw the couple and the viewer alike down a mystical path of the painter’s imagining.

Set is a testament to Degen's love of paint and its possibility. Two men simultaneously look out to sea, lifting their arms in symmetry to shield their eyes from the bright light of the setting sun. Both are highly stylized— Degen's figures are never portraits but caricatures, Everyman. Here, the skin is rendered in a welter of mark-making and patterns. The figure on the left is covered in small yellow swirls, mimicking light as reflected off the waves. This pattern is extended at right, where delicate wisps of blue over a pink ground cast the figure in a purple haze, adding dimension to the existing palette. The bright gridded underpainting provides further clues to the painting's underpinning, suggesting the grid used to transfer sketch to canvas.

Palette, texture, and content all converge to create a unique dynamism in Degen's work— whereas the subject of movement plays an important role throughout the paintings in this exhibition, movement also comes alive in the artist's innovative approach to material and technique.

Night and day, Degen presents two approaches to portraiture in In Waves. Taking its title from a basin on the moon, Mare Insularum proffers an otherworldly rendering of a solitary head framed by the sea. The setting mirrors that of other nighttime scenes— think Way or Mångata— focusing here on the subject's face in moonlight. Green, blue, and purple brushstrokes convey both light and texture, bearded stubble and hair. The seafoam green used to create the effect of light on the water likewise brings interest and depth to the subject's eyes.

With Beach Goer, Degen returns to the sea using a bright yellow daylight cast to color the swirls patterning the subject's face, not unlike those found in Set. The sun radiates over a cloudless sky rendered in intricate marks and patterns as if to emphasize the pulsating motion of the sun's rays. Here, Degen combines movement with portraiture— while the subject is stolid, the landscape around him is abuzz with activity. Where Mare Insularum conveys a quiet serenity, Beach Goer presents the verso. Through his careful mark-making, Degen captures the sensation of being on the beach: the heat of the sun, the cool ocean breeze, and the soothing sound of the waves lapping at our feet.