Ben Grosse-Johannboecke is a painter living and working in London. He graduated from Chelsea College of Art (Graduate Diploma Fine Art) in 2024. His work has been exhibited internationally, including at Mamut Art Project 11 (Istanbul, Turkey) and LAAF Set_Theory (ŁóŁódź, Poland), as well as in multiple group exhibitions in London, including Warbling Collective and Purist Gallery. He has been selected at one of three Artists to watch by Luisa Seipp for ArtConnect.

 

Ben's practice confronts the duality of politically engaged and autonomous art through the use of satellite imagery from areas of sociopolitical importance, which is then layered, abstracted, and frequently obscured by painted vertical pulses, often to the point where the initial image has become almost entirely unrecognisable. Specific parts are deliberately left unobstructed to challenge the viewer to see whether the absence of a visual barrier makes the image more digestible. This process challenges the notion of the image's ability to store information and asks how abstract sociopolitical imagery is to begin with.

Numerous canvases have metal cages or structures built around them, which is often the case with imagery that has been abstracted less, that is still close to its original form, and therefore more sensitive, more in need of protection.

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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 it gets washed out until it becomes unclear 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 a related concept of 'exhausted painting'.

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Recently, Grosse-Johannboecke has been working with satellite imagery that is digitally collaged and manipulated. These images are then cut into overlapping stripes and repeatedly painted over, gradually obscuring the underlying visuals. In a manner akin to the "exhausted image," the "exhausted painting" detaches itself from its origin, entering the realm of art-historical abstraction and raising the question of when the connection between source material and final painting is severed. In areas where the image remains unobstructed, Grosse-Johannboecke constructs metal cages around these more sensitive, "unexhausted" and exposed sections, shielding them 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.

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