SCOPE | Paul Stephen Benjamin

David Lusk Gallery PAUL STEPHEN BENJAMIN

Atlanta-based multimedia artist Paul Stephen Benjamin features the color black prominently in his large-scale obsolete television installations and portraiture.

Benjamin's installations immerse viewers in a multidimensional Black color palette. The absence and presence of color unfold, weaving a narrative that resonates with personal and communal investigations into identity, power, and authority dynamics

With his newest creations for SCOPE, Benjamin is expanding on themes he has explored throughout his artistic career. Space Very Blackout Rectangle, a latex hanging installation, and Very Black Square are both pieces playing with the connotations that come along with blackness.

Very Black Square, Valspar Very Black 5011-2 Latex Paint, Behr Black Latex Paint on Burlap, 74x75, 2023

Space Very Blackout Rectangle, Benjamin Moore Space Black 2119-10 Latex Paint, Valspar Very Black 5011-2 Latex Paint, Behr Blackout N510-7 Latex Paint on Burlap, 102x75, 2023

Benjamin has created multiple installations to challenge viewers to contemplate the meaning of the color black, most notably his installations created for Pure, Very, New, at Marianne Boesky Gallery and his multi-media exhibition The Dirty South: Contemporary Art, Material Culture, and the Sonic Impulse at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

Paul Stephen Benjamin earned a BA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and his MFA from Georgia State University. In 2021, Benjamin participated in Yesterday We Said Tomorrow, a Prospect.5 exhibition taking place throughout New Orleans, LA. Other exhibitions include State of the Art 2020, Crystal Bridges Museum and The Momentary, Bentonville, AR; Great Force, Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA; Reinterpreting the Sound of Blackness, Telfair Museums, Savannah, GA; and Black is the Color, High Museum of Art, Atlanta.

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