Ben Cottrell
Ben Cottrell’s multi-layered, dynamic work encompasses expansive installations, sculptures, paintings, photography and drawings. An image world of ambivalent energies unfolds in his works, in which the body often serves as a representative for multiple transformations. Nature and myth, culture and cliché, creation and collapse, philosophy and pop, the improvised and the carefully developed find simultaneous expression in his works. Form, excess and jubilant chaos topple into one another, producing an atmosphere of uncertainty and openness.
Ben Cottrell, born in 1972 in Cornwall, England, lives in Berlin. He studied at Cheltenham School of Art and Design, was an artist in residence at, among other institutions, MuseumsQuartier, Vienna, and Meet Factory, Prague. He was also co-director of the Berlin-based exhibition space forever and a day Büro. His works have been shown in venues including Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn; Cell Project Space, London; Envoy Enterprises, New York; Gallery Ben Kaufmann, Berlin; Gallery Mikael Andersen, Copenhagen; Garage Rotterdam; Ten Haaf Projects, Amsterdam; Blackbridge Offspace, Bejing; Kunst-Werke Berlin; Knust x Kunz, Munich; Superdeals, Brussels; Warhus Rittershaus, Cologne; Sauvage, Düsseldorf; Märkisches Museum, Witten.