The World With Us. The World With Out Us" is a show highlighting the work of RISD Alumni: Eileen Behnke and Leon Benn, whose works deal with landscape and the relationship between humankind and nature.
"...Unify your attention. Do not listen with the ears, listen with the mind. Do not listen with the mind but listen with the vital breath. The ears only listen to sounds. The mind is only aware of its objects. But to focus on the vital breath is to be empty and await the arising of objects. It is only the Way that settles in emptiness. Emptiness is the fasting of the mind."
— Charles Angus Graham
"The World With Us. The World Without Us" attempts to embody the ideals in the aforementioned excerpt by Graham. It is the attempt to exist and non-exist simultaneously, to relate to your surroundings in a state of sleep or dream while being present in a state of consciousness. The works draw reference from actual events and translates the memory, filtered through the occurrence of the romance between man and nature.
Loosely conceived as a landscape show, the work also carries weight as a philosophical commentary on an age of alienation from the environment and from our purpose on earth. The artists make work exuding the magic, mystery and fantasy that is still found, but which we have lost interest in preserving or appreciating.
Eileen Behnke was born in Princeton, NJ and received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design with a concentration in painting. Behnke's recent work is a fluctuating, open and boundary free arena within which she explores the relationship between humankind and nature, combining celebrity obsession, aberrant social behavior and apocalyptical occurrences in nature. She currently lives and works in New York.
Leon Benn, born in Philadelphia, PA, graduated from Rhode Island School of Design with a degree in illustration. The artist's practice involves imagining dream/nightmare realms in which the image of natural landscape succumbs to a suspended state: infinite energy captured in an instant. The artist aims to explore the human relationship with nature as a seemingly innocent romance with an undercurrent of mystery, love, sex, hunger and death. The final effect is one of an awakening from a strange dream.
Curator(s)
Colleen Grennan
