Biography & Curiculum Vitae
Biography
Walk into Ben Laycock’s studio in Castlemaine and you will find yourself surrounded by the natural world. On every wall and surface hang bright canvases, some over two metres tall, of luminous waterfalls, sprawling desserts and ancient inland rivers. “Australia has been drifting around the ocean for fifty million years,” Ben explains, “It is now very flat, worn away by countless floods until it resembles a vast canvas, painted by the weather,” The sheer volume of work - oil paintings, gouaches, prints and drawings- is testament to Ben’s sense of connection to the land.
A superb example of Ben's mature work is Snake River (2008). A zigzag of white-blue water weaves its way across an eroded desert. On either side deep grooves, runoffs and ditches crackle with primordial energy. “Ben continues. “I’m trying to show the way these natural forces shape and reshape the land, without end.” In many of Ben’s recent paintings this idea is explored from an aerial perspective. “I often find myself painting from a bird’s eye view, much as aboriginal people do. It’s the only way to see such a flat landscape.” The result is highly personal, a spirited vision of the power of nature.
Before becoming a full time artist Ben lived a largely nomadic life, crisscrossing the country with his partner and young family. He kept a journal throughout this period, recording the various people and places he visited, particularly his encounters with aboriginal people and the desert. These travelogues formed the foundation stones of what was to become his major preoccupation. “It took a long time to grow, this idea of painting the power of the land.”
When asked to reflect on the origins of this feeling for landscape, Ben recalls his childhood at Dunmoochin, the thriving artist’s colony on the outskirts of Melbourne, established by Clifton and Marlene Pugh in 1951. “I grew up surrounded by potters and painters in the bush. Clifton Pugh was one of the first painters to campaign on behalf of the environment - and one of the first to own a Toyota Landcruiser. I remember our first big trip across the Strzelecki desert. I was thirteen years old. We started at Tibooburra and drove to the Flinders Ranges and Lake Fromme, following faded tyre tracks through the desert. We’d stop for lunch and find aboriginal artefacts. Now that’s authentic! It was my first experience of the desert and I loved it.”
When he was nineteen Ben left Dunmoochin and built a small house deep in the forest at nearby Christmas Hills. “I wanted to go deep into nature, deep into the wilderness, far from the madding crowd” After that he travelled to South America for twelve months, returned to Melbourne, and studied printmaking at the VCA. Ben continued to paint and enjoyed a sell out show at United Artists Gallery in St Kilda. Soon after, he received a Travel Grant to visit Nicaragua, where he was commissioned to paint a mural of The Story of Creation According to the Bible and the Humanitarian Achievements of the Nicaraguan Revolution on a chapel belonging to Catholic Marxists. Ben completed the mural, returned to Melbourne, and found that he was torn between a life of art and a life of politics.
Thus began an extended period of soul searching for the young artist. He took up various revolutionary causes, but avoided any organised groups. “I’m not a joiner. I just wanted a revolution on my own. Pretty crazy really.” To make ends meet he painted murals, printed posters, did graffiti and neglected his painting. One day he strapped a pack on his back and walked away from it all, embarking on a personal “Odyssey” into the outback. He hitchhiked to the Kimberleys via the tiny aboriginal community of Nyripi in the Western Desert, then across to Dunk Island in Far North Queensland. The trip revitalised his passion for the landscape and established a working pattern that has continued ever since: “I’d do drawings on site, come back to St.Kilda to finish them off, live on the dole, scrimp and scrape, have a show, get a fist full of dollars and head off again.”
After years of wayward travel he finally moved to Central Victoria, where he built a house from recycled materials in Barkers Creek. Since then there have been fewer inland trips, and his work has become increasingly abstract but always feeding off those trips to the desert. “Lately I’ve become increasingly obsessed with water, with the way it shapes and reshapes the land. Water brings things to life!" Indeed, water appears in all but a few of Ben's most recent works. It often spreads like a network of veins across the vast,empty plains. The result is epic, abstract, surreal. “Water is something that speaks to the unconscious, " he says, "it dissolves reality."
In Philosophers Falls (2010), for example, a central cascade of luminous, ethereal light radiates out into the rock-shelf itself, dissolving any distinction between water, earth and air. This alchemy is achieved with curling, fluid brushstrokes, each of which contributes to the overall pattern of energy. This pattern unifies the painting, showing that nothing can be excluded from the never-ending flow of life.
These days Ben’s work rarely displays overt political messages, but he feels that any act that sides with natural world, against the many threats that would diminish it, is a political act. “We must be grounded in the spirit of place in order to defend it.”
In a work like Conflagration (2010), for example, the perils of rampant development are presented with visionary power. Twisted flames and blazing apparitions rise menacingly above a coastline of poisoned water and rock. A solitary dog scavenges on the edge of an abandoned pipeline. This apocalyptic image shows us what the world might look like when our connection to nature is severed. We neglect the ecosystem at our own peril. The alternative to this can be seen in Pink River (2010). Here a ribbon of water splits the canvas in half, spreading left and right into the red sand. The rich palette and spirited brushwork underscore a sense of natural joy and harmony: this is undisturbed country, where everything is naturally in flux. “Go out into the heart of Australia, as far away from the city as you can,” Ben says. “Stand still for a very long while. Let the sun bleach your skin. Let the wind scour your bones. Eventually the clutter and trivia of quotidian existence will wash away. And then you’ll begin to feel a resonance between your soul and the soul of the earth.”
Ben’s work has strong affinities with the Deep Ecology movement, which stresses the inherent value and interconnectedness of all life. This interconnectedness must be realized personally, as Rainer Maria Rilke, one of Ben’s favourite poets, knew well:
Earth, isn’t this
what you want:
rising up
inside us invisibly
once more?
Isn’t it your dream
to be invisible someday?
Earth! invisible!
what is it
you urgently ask for
if not transformation?
Earth, my love
I will do it.
To see Ben’s landscape painting is to see the landscape as the artist does, from the inside. “My response to the landscape wells up from the unconscious. I want my work to evoke an immediate, visceral response, before thought, beyond thought” he says. The act of painting becomes an act of transformation, allowing us to see the invisible spirit of place. These highly personal and symbolic paintings restore our fractured relationship to the land and make possible a greater intimacy with the earth.
Ken South 2010
A superb example of Ben's mature work is Snake River (2008). A zigzag of white-blue water weaves its way across an eroded desert. On either side deep grooves, runoffs and ditches crackle with primordial energy. “Ben continues. “I’m trying to show the way these natural forces shape and reshape the land, without end.” In many of Ben’s recent paintings this idea is explored from an aerial perspective. “I often find myself painting from a bird’s eye view, much as aboriginal people do. It’s the only way to see such a flat landscape.” The result is highly personal, a spirited vision of the power of nature.
Before becoming a full time artist Ben lived a largely nomadic life, crisscrossing the country with his partner and young family. He kept a journal throughout this period, recording the various people and places he visited, particularly his encounters with aboriginal people and the desert. These travelogues formed the foundation stones of what was to become his major preoccupation. “It took a long time to grow, this idea of painting the power of the land.”
When asked to reflect on the origins of this feeling for landscape, Ben recalls his childhood at Dunmoochin, the thriving artist’s colony on the outskirts of Melbourne, established by Clifton and Marlene Pugh in 1951. “I grew up surrounded by potters and painters in the bush. Clifton Pugh was one of the first painters to campaign on behalf of the environment - and one of the first to own a Toyota Landcruiser. I remember our first big trip across the Strzelecki desert. I was thirteen years old. We started at Tibooburra and drove to the Flinders Ranges and Lake Fromme, following faded tyre tracks through the desert. We’d stop for lunch and find aboriginal artefacts. Now that’s authentic! It was my first experience of the desert and I loved it.”
When he was nineteen Ben left Dunmoochin and built a small house deep in the forest at nearby Christmas Hills. “I wanted to go deep into nature, deep into the wilderness, far from the madding crowd” After that he travelled to South America for twelve months, returned to Melbourne, and studied printmaking at the VCA. Ben continued to paint and enjoyed a sell out show at United Artists Gallery in St Kilda. Soon after, he received a Travel Grant to visit Nicaragua, where he was commissioned to paint a mural of The Story of Creation According to the Bible and the Humanitarian Achievements of the Nicaraguan Revolution on a chapel belonging to Catholic Marxists. Ben completed the mural, returned to Melbourne, and found that he was torn between a life of art and a life of politics.
Thus began an extended period of soul searching for the young artist. He took up various revolutionary causes, but avoided any organised groups. “I’m not a joiner. I just wanted a revolution on my own. Pretty crazy really.” To make ends meet he painted murals, printed posters, did graffiti and neglected his painting. One day he strapped a pack on his back and walked away from it all, embarking on a personal “Odyssey” into the outback. He hitchhiked to the Kimberleys via the tiny aboriginal community of Nyripi in the Western Desert, then across to Dunk Island in Far North Queensland. The trip revitalised his passion for the landscape and established a working pattern that has continued ever since: “I’d do drawings on site, come back to St.Kilda to finish them off, live on the dole, scrimp and scrape, have a show, get a fist full of dollars and head off again.”
After years of wayward travel he finally moved to Central Victoria, where he built a house from recycled materials in Barkers Creek. Since then there have been fewer inland trips, and his work has become increasingly abstract but always feeding off those trips to the desert. “Lately I’ve become increasingly obsessed with water, with the way it shapes and reshapes the land. Water brings things to life!" Indeed, water appears in all but a few of Ben's most recent works. It often spreads like a network of veins across the vast,empty plains. The result is epic, abstract, surreal. “Water is something that speaks to the unconscious, " he says, "it dissolves reality."
In Philosophers Falls (2010), for example, a central cascade of luminous, ethereal light radiates out into the rock-shelf itself, dissolving any distinction between water, earth and air. This alchemy is achieved with curling, fluid brushstrokes, each of which contributes to the overall pattern of energy. This pattern unifies the painting, showing that nothing can be excluded from the never-ending flow of life.
These days Ben’s work rarely displays overt political messages, but he feels that any act that sides with natural world, against the many threats that would diminish it, is a political act. “We must be grounded in the spirit of place in order to defend it.”
In a work like Conflagration (2010), for example, the perils of rampant development are presented with visionary power. Twisted flames and blazing apparitions rise menacingly above a coastline of poisoned water and rock. A solitary dog scavenges on the edge of an abandoned pipeline. This apocalyptic image shows us what the world might look like when our connection to nature is severed. We neglect the ecosystem at our own peril. The alternative to this can be seen in Pink River (2010). Here a ribbon of water splits the canvas in half, spreading left and right into the red sand. The rich palette and spirited brushwork underscore a sense of natural joy and harmony: this is undisturbed country, where everything is naturally in flux. “Go out into the heart of Australia, as far away from the city as you can,” Ben says. “Stand still for a very long while. Let the sun bleach your skin. Let the wind scour your bones. Eventually the clutter and trivia of quotidian existence will wash away. And then you’ll begin to feel a resonance between your soul and the soul of the earth.”
Ben’s work has strong affinities with the Deep Ecology movement, which stresses the inherent value and interconnectedness of all life. This interconnectedness must be realized personally, as Rainer Maria Rilke, one of Ben’s favourite poets, knew well:
Earth, isn’t this
what you want:
rising up
inside us invisibly
once more?
Isn’t it your dream
to be invisible someday?
Earth! invisible!
what is it
you urgently ask for
if not transformation?
Earth, my love
I will do it.
To see Ben’s landscape painting is to see the landscape as the artist does, from the inside. “My response to the landscape wells up from the unconscious. I want my work to evoke an immediate, visceral response, before thought, beyond thought” he says. The act of painting becomes an act of transformation, allowing us to see the invisible spirit of place. These highly personal and symbolic paintings restore our fractured relationship to the land and make possible a greater intimacy with the earth.
Ken South 2010
Curiculum Vitae
SOLO SHOWS
2009 Fee Broadway Castlemaine
2008 Brightspace Melbourne Caspa Castlemaine
2006 Brightspace Melbourne Caspa Castlemaine
2005 Convent Daylesford
2004 Brightspace Melbourne
2003 Convent Daylesford
2002 Convent Daylesford
2000 Steps Melbourne
1998 Durack Broome
1997 Steps Melbourne
1991 F.O. E. Melbourne
1989 Emerald Hill Melbourne
1985 United Artists Melbourne
1982 Pinacotheca Melbourne
SELECTED GROUP SHOWS
2010 Lot19 Castlemaine 'Autumn Salon'
2007 Brightspace Melbourne, Museum of South Australia, Adelaide 'Tracks in the Desert'
2006 North East Sculpture Event Wangarratta
2006 North East Sculpture Event Wangarratta
Qdos Sculpture Biennale Lorne
2005 CASPA Gallery, Castlemaine 'Three Mediums'
2004 Pennyschool Gallery, Maldon 'The Tree Show, a Bushwazie group show '
Maritime Art Awards finalist exhibition Melbourne
2003 John Glover Memorial Prize finalist Show Launceston Tasmania
The Barn Gallery, Montsalvat Melbourne 'Origin:Dunmoochin Second
2005 CASPA Gallery, Castlemaine 'Three Mediums'
2004 Pennyschool Gallery, Maldon 'The Tree Show, a Bushwazie group show '
Maritime Art Awards finalist exhibition Melbourne
2003 John Glover Memorial Prize finalist Show Launceston Tasmania
The Barn Gallery, Montsalvat Melbourne 'Origin:Dunmoochin Second
and third generation artists from the Dunmoochin artistic enclave.'
Doveton Gallery Castlemaine 'This is where we live.' Inaugural exhibition
Bushwazie environmental art movement, part of Mamunya: A celebration of the box-
ironbark forest
Swan Hill Drawing Prize finalist exhibition
Nillumbik Prize finalist exhibition Melbourne
1998 Castlemaine Fringe Festival
Castlemaine Drawing Prize finalists exhibition
The Australian Arts Crawl Kyneton
1997 Shinju Matsuri Festival Broome
1996 Castlemaine Fringe Festival
1987 Ben Grady Gallery Canberra
1986 Ben Grady Gallery Canberra
TRAVEL
Swan Hill Drawing Prize finalist exhibition
Nillumbik Prize finalist exhibition Melbourne
1998 Castlemaine Fringe Festival
Castlemaine Drawing Prize finalists exhibition
The Australian Arts Crawl Kyneton
1997 Shinju Matsuri Festival Broome
1996 Castlemaine Fringe Festival
1987 Ben Grady Gallery Canberra
1986 Ben Grady Gallery Canberra
TRAVEL
2006 South America, U.S.A.
2004 The Tarkine. Tasmania
2002 The Kimberley. W.A.
2001 The Flinders Ranges. S.A.
1999 Bruni Island Tasmania
1997 The Pilbara. W.A.
1990 Cape York, Far North Queensland
1988 Arnhem Land N.T.
1986 The Western Desert W.A.
1985 Nicaragua Central America
1984 Japan
1978 Europe, North and South America
GRANTS and PROJECTS
2006 Ecological Timeline Mural, part of Mount Alexander Shire 'Footprints' project, which received a special comendation for Best Local Government Environmental Initiative at
The United Nations World Environment Day Awards 2007
2005 Launched CASPA Castlemaine contemporary art space
2004 Mentor for Independent Learning Project. Castlemaine Secondary College
2003 Mosaic mural project. Winters Flat Primary School
Launched the Bushwazie environmental art movement
2002 Art Liaison Person.Yakanarra Aboriginal Community. The Kimberley. W.A.
2001 Tonksculpture Prize exhibition curator
Mentor for School Holiday Program, Marree Aboriginal School. S.A.
2000 Arts Editor of The Journal community newspaper
Mentor program for V.C.E.art students at Castlemaine Secondary College
1998 Artists in Schools Grant to produce a mosaic tile mural with the children of Winters Flat Primary School
Visual Arts Coordinator for the Castlemaine Fringe Festival
1996 Castlemaine Cultural Columns Project. Working with various ethnic groups to produce images of their culture to adorn power poles in the C.B.D. of Castlemaine
Port Fairy Folk Festival 20th Anniversary celebrations. Produced lantern sculptures and fire sculptures
1989 Vic Health Grant to produce a mural at the Kensington Community Health Centre with El Salvadorian refugees
1988 Vic Health Grant to produce a mural at the Kensington Community Centre with El Salvadorian children
1986 Produced a mural with the children of The Noonkenbah Aboriginal School in the Kimberley W.A.
1985 Visual Arts Board of The Australia Council Travel Grant to produce a community mural in Nicaragua, Central America
Joint recipient of a C.D.E.P. grant to set up The Galleon Cafe in St. Kilda
2005 Launched CASPA Castlemaine contemporary art space
2004 Mentor for Independent Learning Project. Castlemaine Secondary College
2003 Mosaic mural project. Winters Flat Primary School
Launched the Bushwazie environmental art movement
2002 Art Liaison Person.Yakanarra Aboriginal Community. The Kimberley. W.A.
2001 Tonksculpture Prize exhibition curator
Mentor for School Holiday Program, Marree Aboriginal School. S.A.
2000 Arts Editor of The Journal community newspaper
Mentor program for V.C.E.art students at Castlemaine Secondary College
1998 Artists in Schools Grant to produce a mosaic tile mural with the children of Winters Flat Primary School
Visual Arts Coordinator for the Castlemaine Fringe Festival
1996 Castlemaine Cultural Columns Project. Working with various ethnic groups to produce images of their culture to adorn power poles in the C.B.D. of Castlemaine
Port Fairy Folk Festival 20th Anniversary celebrations. Produced lantern sculptures and fire sculptures
1989 Vic Health Grant to produce a mural at the Kensington Community Health Centre with El Salvadorian refugees
1988 Vic Health Grant to produce a mural at the Kensington Community Centre with El Salvadorian children
1986 Produced a mural with the children of The Noonkenbah Aboriginal School in the Kimberley W.A.
1985 Visual Arts Board of The Australia Council Travel Grant to produce a community mural in Nicaragua, Central America
Joint recipient of a C.D.E.P. grant to set up The Galleon Cafe in St. Kilda
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
2001 Australian National Gallery Australian print collection
1991 St. Kilda City Council
1985 National Gallery of Victoria. Michelle Endowment for the Arts
St.Kilda City Council
1982 Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council
PUBLICATIONS
2010 Trouble - May issue 'Greetings from Brizvegas'
1997 The Aboriginal Independent. Cartoon
1996 Green Left Weekly Front cover image.
1989 Sunday Telegraph Feature article on Emerald Hill Gallery
1988 Sunday Age Feature article on the Kensington community mural
1987 Art in Australia Survey of Ben Grady Show
1986 El Nuevo Diario. Nicaragua Feature article on the community mural
1985 The Age Review of United Artists show
SALIENT POINTS IN MY ARTISTIC TRAJECTORY
2005 Living near Castlemaine with my partner and two children
1992 Moved to Castlemaine, Central Victoria and built a house in the bush.
1980-81 Studied Printmaking at The Victorian College of the Arts
1979 Began living in St.Kilda
1975 Built a house in the bush at Christmas Hills
1960-74 Grew up in Dunmoochin artists community on the outskirts of Melbourne.
1956 Born, Melbourne.
1997 The Aboriginal Independent. Cartoon
1996 Green Left Weekly Front cover image.
1989 Sunday Telegraph Feature article on Emerald Hill Gallery
1988 Sunday Age Feature article on the Kensington community mural
1987 Art in Australia Survey of Ben Grady Show
1986 El Nuevo Diario. Nicaragua Feature article on the community mural
1985 The Age Review of United Artists show
SALIENT POINTS IN MY ARTISTIC TRAJECTORY
2005 Living near Castlemaine with my partner and two children
1992 Moved to Castlemaine, Central Victoria and built a house in the bush.
1980-81 Studied Printmaking at The Victorian College of the Arts
1979 Began living in St.Kilda
1975 Built a house in the bush at Christmas Hills
1960-74 Grew up in Dunmoochin artists community on the outskirts of Melbourne.
1956 Born, Melbourne.
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