Antwerp Art Weekend

18 - 21 May 2023

Ben Edmunds

Represented by Tatjana Pieters

Born in 1994 in United Kingdom Lives and works in London, United Kindom

Best known for his large scale paintings that combine tropes of modernist abstraction with the stylised accents of extreme sports, the practice of Ben Edmunds moves between painting, sculpture, photography, branding, usefull objects and wearable equipment. Throughout the lens of Abstract Expressionism and color field painting, in which painting sought to become a transcendental experience, his work can be seen as an updated modernism, a search for the meaning in the context of fashions and trends, ‘couch to 5k’, remote personal training and welness coaching. Growing up in rural England, Edmunds was surrounded by a culture of outdoor leisure pursuit. He draws on this personal history of sailing, windsurfing and cycling to explore the transcendental parallel between abstract painting and adventure sports. To the artists, these sports offer an escape, an urge to go beyond the known boundaries of geography and the body. questioning the assumed anti-utilitarianism of abstract painting, the artist proposes to examine the function of a painting as equipment.