Dead Air

About the Art and the Artist.

Erik Benson’s paintings are informed by architecture and landscape found in the urban everyday. Dead Air was primarily composed using photographs that Benson took of the new Ikea in Red Hook, Brooklyn. He was struck by the lopsided scale of the building against the backdrop of the neighborhood’s wharfs. The absurdity of these elements together, and the gentrification they cited reminded Benson of Ed Ruscha’s painting of the Los Angeles County Museum on fire, which is referenced indirectly. Dead Air specifically addresses the changes and concerns of gentrification that continue to interest the artist, visually and conceptually.