Ben Woodhams SWLA

Statement

‘My practice is founded in direct observation and specialises in birds, working primarily in watercolour. Studies of living birds are made in the field, while dead birds are taken to the studio. Moments in time, and the relationship between the process of observation and depiction, are the engines that drive my work – the tension between the ‘need’ to capture the moment or the vision, and the desire to let the medium speak its own language. For me the bird is a means to an end - a gateway through which I can make a meaningful connection to my physical environment.

Whilst most of my work tends to be quick, observation-based and instinctual, I am also interested in the more composed practice of printmaking, and have also made some three dimensional installations.

I am obsessed with the visual plane, and changes in the environment through space and time. The patterns made by a passing flock of cranes, the rising tide within a rock pool, shadows moving over a rock during a day, an oilseed rape field blooming over a period of weeks, changes through the seasons and over years and through space’

Bio

Born in 1970, Ben Woodhams is an English artist and illustrator currently living and working in Denmark. After working for a number of years on ‘the other side’, as an exhibitions curator in Galleries and Museums in Bristol and Birmingham, Ben and his family moved to the Danish island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea in 2008, where Ben is fully able to indulge his lifelong passion for birds, the natural environment and mark making. Ben exhibits on Bornholm, the rest of Denmark and the UK and combines his drawing and painting with teaching at various locations throughout Bornholm, including the local Art School.

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