Ruin Upon Ruin - Ben (University of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne) White - Bog

Ruin Upon Ruin
by Ben White
Essays by Doug Harvey and John Hogan
Hardbound, full color
Dimensions: 8.75" x 11.5" x 0.5" 140 pages

The Insert Blanc Monograph series continues with Ruin Upon Ruin by Ben White accompanied by a Limited Series of paintings available for sale from Insert Blanc Press. Featuring 30 paintings along with numerous details and images from White's sketchbook, Ruin Upon Ruin by Ben White collects a number of White's paintings into a single body of work from over the past five years. A large format, full color, hardbound edition of 140 pages with essays by Doug Harvey and John Hogan, Ruin Upon Ruin by Ben White is forthcoming in summer 2014.

"Ben White conflates figures from American history and folk tales with contemporary box stores and roadside attractions, pointing to the relativity of cultural import and the collapsible nature of intellectual, philosophical and religious "progress" in America."
- John Hogan, Art21, May, 2012.

"Ben White's paintings merge anachronistic personages, events, biblical narratives, and popular culture to create a fantastic, nonlinear interpretation of history. ... The incongruencies are absurd, and the absurdity itself pulls them into the present. ... It becomes our history again, on equal terms with the present and once again acceptable as subject matter for contemporary painting. Historical gravity, leavened by wit, becomes a source of pleasure and fascination." - Lara Bank, California Contemporary Art, Summer 2010

"If one were to run across one of Ben White's paintings at a suburban garage sale or in the dusty backroom of a thrift store, one would snap it up immediately, display it prominently in one's hip Silverlake-adjacent living room, then post it immediately on Facebook, hoping to learn more about the quixotic outsider genius that produced it. The Council of Nicaea supervising the faking of a moon landing? Unimpeachable. Liberace among the Hyenas in the Colloseum? Fabulous!"-Doug Harvey

Born in 1978 in Jacksonville, FL, White studied painting, drawing, and printmaking at the Florida State University School of Art from 1997 to 2001. Two of those years were spent studying, researching, and creating work in Florence Italy, where he first began to develop a visual language that spoke to the recondite nature of established historical narratives and the visual propaganda which creates those narratives. He received his MFA from CalArts in 2003.

White's work and curatorial design have been shown in numerous group and solo exhibitions at venues such as Blythe Projects, The Torrance Art Museum, Sea and Space Explorations, the Santa Monica Museum of Art, and many others. White is the a recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant for 2011-2012, and his collaborative work has been seen in Flaunt magazine. He co-produces and hosts the art and culture show "The People" on KCHUNG radio 1630AM, and currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.