Bobby Benjamin: Object

About

Bobby Benjamin is an artist based in Teesside. Working primarily in found materials, he makes paintings and sculptures exploring themes of class, masculine identity and place. His use of found objects acts as a creative restraint within which he addresses the voyeuristic relationship between the arts as an industry, and the working/underclass. He challenges cultural hegemony and hierarchical perceptions of culture while embracing the history of found objects and the materiality of paint.

Benjamin’s produces work that is site specific and transient, with deinstallation and destruction often going hand in hand. His materials often act as the connection through his wider practice; with objects and symbols regularly re-imagined and re-used from one piece to the next to act as recurring motifs or ‘Easter eggs’.

Benjamin is the youngest of eight brothers and grew up in a low-income household in the coastal town of Redcar. He moved to Middlesbrough to pursue a career in the arts at the age of 25, inspired by his first ever visit to a contemporary art gallery. He is a keen advocate of the role art has to play in the lives of young people and their communities, working with both National Saturday Club at MIMA and Borderlands in Middlesbrough.

Founded in 1997 in Newcastle upon Tyne, Vane this year marks its twenty-fifth anniversary in our new home across the River Tyne in Gateshead.