Ben Grosse-Johannboecke

Lives and works in London, UK

Artist statement

Sociopolitical images circulate endlessly; they are appropriated, put in different contexts, cropped, edited, sent, misunderstood, and eventually lose their impact. We become accustomed to them, or they to us. The longer it is in circulation, the more unclear it gets where it came from and how it should be interpreted. It has moved away from its sociopolitical context and lost its context. It has become abstract. This idea of the 'exhausted image' is central to my practice, combined with the concept of 'exhausted painting'. Recently, I have been using satellite imagery that has been digitally collaged and manipulated. These images were then cut into overlapping stripes and painted again multiple times, obstructing the image underneath. Similar to the exhausted image, the exhausted painting distances itself from its origin and moves into the space of art-historical abstraction, posing the question of when the connection between source and painting breaks. Where the image is not obstructed, I build metal cages around it to protect these more sensitive, 'unexhausted', exposed images from the viewer's gaze. Refracted and repeating like the audio recordings in Steve Reich's musical compositions, the painting-hybrids dance between political and autonomous, readable and abstract, creating a delicate web of trauma.

Artwork