Benjamin King American, b. 1977

Benjamin King’s landscape paintings are born from an improvisational process guided by intuition, in King’s words “like a hunting or tracking; discovering a narrative from trace nuances left behind.” Spending a majority of time outdoors in every kind of weather, King looks for niches and pockets of the natural world where animals might dwell but humans aren’t seen; escaping the hegemony of human establishments and portraying a more expansive way of looking at earth’s complex ecosystems of which people are only a small part. It is these glances into nature without human presence that King is interested in; both for encouraging a broadened understanding of the natural world but also for exploring earth without people; a notion that looms over us as we tackle the daunting realities of climate change. 

King holds an MFA from the University of Chicago and a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. King's work has been exhibited locally and internationally in galleries including Freight+Volume, Laroche/Joncas, White Columns, Longhouse Projects, ACME Los Angeles, Ridgeway Exhibitions, and the Painting Center. King is a fellow of the Edward F. Albee Foundation and a repeat recipient of the DNA artist in residence award sponsored by Freight+Volume gallery.

King’s work has appeared in numerous magazines including ART News, The Huffington Post, Modern Painters, Bomb, and Mousse. His work was included in an Exit Art and MIT press publication called Alternative Histories in 2010, a compendium documenting New York alternative art since the 1960s. King lives and works in Poughkeepsie, New York.