Benjamin Brett’s paintings explore the ambiguity of visual information and the inherent weaknesses of abstraction. Each work depicts a unique environment with its own subset of archetypal objects and motifs. Rather than inviting us into a story or context, these devices function as signs without the signified. Brett disappoints our expectations as meaning-makers. One can almost see the wink hiding within the works–they play at the reactionary impulse to seek, find, and resolve. Displacing notions of frame and boundary and disengaging from narrative, each painting reveals a setting where expectation, interpretation, and translation collide.

His work has been exhibited in New York at Ana Cristea Gallery, and in London at BEERS Contemporary, Westminster Waste, Departure Foundation, Blyth Gallery at Imperial College, and the Royal College of Arts, among other venues.

Courtesy of Ana Cristea Gallery