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Ben Cook – Seascapes
Ben Cook moved to west Cornwall with his young family three years ago to realize a lifetime ambition to live by the ocean and surf. His new body of work has been influenced by the landscape, and both the arts and surf cultures of his new environment. Ben’s local break is Praa sands and when he is not chasing a wave he can be found developing new work in collaboration with other makers and shapers from the west Cornwall area.
For the Exeter Phoenix Gallery in March last year and with the help of an Arts Council England South West award, he was able to work with Homeblown a surfboard factory in Portreath, to produce custom made ‘canvases’ from polyurethane blocks. These were given rounded (railed) edges, sprayed black and fiberglassed using cloth and resin.
After several stages of polishing Cook ‘drew’ on them with surf wax (used to provide grip on a surfboard). The polished black fiberglass reflects both the environment in which it is placed, (the landscape), and the spectator. As long as the viewer’s image is reflected in the artworks, they become hybrid objects that hover uncertainly between abstraction and figuration. Where there is surf wax, the surface becomes a non-reflective textural mass of lumps and smears which reference drawing and painting in more traditional media.
Other works produced for the Phoenix Gallery explored sewing together different types, colours and thicknesses of neoprene. Pieces were stitched and glued together and placed on stretchers. The neoprene works refer variously to formal abstract painting, embroidery and textiles and by the incorporation of a horizontal line became seascapes within the context of the exhibition.
When placed in the gallery, the works become at once high and low art. They allude simultaneously to traditional genres of fine art such as landscape painting and minimalist sculpture, and by the nature of their construction, reference the contemporary landscape of Cornwall’s surf culture. In order to reflect the surf community’s ongoing concern with the toxicity of the chemicals used in surfboard production, and in collaboration with Homeblown, Cook’s latest series of works will be made from eco-friendly materials such as balsawood, hemp cloth, biofoams and organic bioresins.