BEN CAVERS

Priest-Sheperd, 35 x 30 x 2cm, 2010

What are you working on in your studio right now?

I have currently not been working in the studio. Apart from the odd frame being made. the studio has become a cavern of items that I own. Boxes and seats and tools and tins of food. I have been in transit from a house to a flat. My current painting life has been on hold. I have been thinking mostly. This is absolutely the important part. Also I have been drawing. If I did not have that I might not know where my practice is going.

Can you describe your working routine?

I have to remember what my routine was. The practice is similar to me in personality. I would concentrate for 1hr then get annoyed, despondent and angry and go and get some crisps from the garage as an escape. I like snacks, these are my downfall. It is not always like this. If I have a piece which has a dead line I work through the pain and hate.

Studio

Can you describe your studio space and how, if at all, that affects your work?

My studio is pretty humble at 250sq foot. It is a shared unit with a very specific feel. It has wonderful tongue and grove walls and wooden floors which was recently painted. We have a lovely toilet that is a wonderful mind bending green. I like this room mostly as the butler sink is an artist’s best friend. We have cold water though which is not an artist’s best friend. But this makes me feel like a real artist in a garret. I forget how it affects my work.

Tell me about your process, where things begin, how they evolve etc.

It is a process which i am still learning from. I have problems with context. So recently i have been interested in lovers. This sets a story and context and shapes. This is the starting point, from here it is an organic process. I sometimes draw in ink or sometimes run straight to the blank canvas. From this point in, it’s me learning pushing and pulling paint. At the moment I am crude, but I want to become refined.

Unfinished vase, 2011

What are you having the most trouble resolving?

Context and meaning and time and death and love and reason.

Do you experiment with different materials a lot or do you prefer to work within certain parameters?

I have had a varied past, at collage I was in love with Thomas Hirchhorn and might have ripped him off a bit. I was a dab hand at brown tape and cardboard. These are things that pop up now and again as I have learnt about their nature as materials and how they perform. I do believe you can be a master of any medium. Paint is my now chosen medium. As I learn this medium, I hope to gain more parameters.

Become a fail, ink on paper, 2010

What does the future hold for this work?

I have grandiose ideas, but I think I am also a pessimist, I think the work will probably be itself. Small and lame.

 Is there anything else you would like to add?

Thanks to my mum and dad ,Philippa and Ailsa and Shona, without loved ones you really have nothing.