Ben Cariens Artist Lecture

So on Wednesday the 3rd I went to Jennifer Moses's artist talk in the museum and had originally planned on writing my next blog post about her lecture and her art. But the whole time she was talking I was very distracted and spacey. I also couldn't stop looking at the amazing sculptures that surrounded me. After her lecture, I was looking around at the sculptures and found out that the artist was having an artist lecture the following week. So I planned on going to his artist talk to find out what these pieces meant. I found them all so interesting to look at and I really wanted to know what the artist meaning was behind each piece.
The following week I attended Ben's artist lecture and really enjoyed it a lot.  One of the main points that I loved about his talk was that he didn't know what half of his sculptures really meant to him. He had just started created them and this is what he came up with. I loved the fact that he had no plan and was just creating these sculptures around him, waiting for the meaning behind the pieces to come to him later. I really liked this style of working because I would always try to find meaning behind my work before I even started creating it. It was reassuring to know that I didn't need a concrete plan at the start of each project, and that I can still be successful and create great art. I also really liked the whole idea of just creating something without really knowing what it was going to become. In one of Ben's pieces there was a large ball of twigs and twin. When he was describing this ball, he mentioned that when he started creating it, he had no idea what it was supposed to be or what it meant to him. I liked that aspect of just creating art because something within him was telling him to do that. He also mentioned that later he discovered that this ball actually represented something in his life. That this ball was all his anxiety, stress, and fears that he feels he has been carrying around with him for a long time. That statement really made me see this piece differently. Now this messy ball of twine looked heaver to me and chaotic. I really liked how my image of his sculpture suddenly changed dramatically, once I heard his personal meaning behind it.
Another point that I really liked about his talk was that all of these pieces were very personal to him in some way. He spoke at the beginning of the lecture how he sometimes feels very exposed and nervous when showing these pieces because the meaning behind some of them were about something very serious in his life. For instance he brought up religion a lot during his lecture and how that plays a part in some of his work. He did not talk specifically of what role religion plays in his life, but gave the impression that it was a topic that he struggles with on a day to day basis. In one of his sculptures he had a bird cade hanging off a door. He described this bird cage as symbolizing religion because many religious people may feel sheltered and comforted by their religion, therefore seeing the cage as a home, while others may feel trapped by religion and see the cage as a prison. I found this very interesting and easy to relate to since I myself and struggling with what I believe and have been switching back and forth between these two concepts of seeing religion as a comforting place or a cage. After he talked about the meaning behind this bird cage, I saw the sculpture in a whole new way, because I could relate to it on a more personal level.
Over all I really loved all of his pieces. They all seemed to give me this strange feeling that made me feel uncomfortable at times, but stopped me from taking my eyes off of them. I loved his work and would love to see more of it in the future.

I was unable to find any pictures of his sculptures that were in the exhibition online, but I was able to find some of his other work, that I equally love. I will post them below.