Ceramic, plaster, and encaustic

Neutral-toned geometric abstract mixed media sculpture by Houston, TX artist Ben Peterson. This piece is included in a 2023 group exhibition, "Friend of a Friend," curated by Vincent Di Nguyen at Reeves Art and Design.

Ben Peterson was born in Hawthorne, Nevada in 1977 and currently lives in Houston, Texas. He received his BFA in painting from the California College of the Arts, San Francisco (2004), and an MFA from Stanford University (2014). Eschewing the tactility and glazed textures common to the medium, Ben Peterson’s ceramic works are angular and geometric, producing an austere simplicity in even his most elaborate constructions. The works’ painted surfaces take on the appearance of weathered and patinated concrete, suggesting that despite their size, each sculpture is alluding to an architectural history. Not modeled strictly after existing buildings or objects, the works oscillate between identities as architectural models, functional objects, and primitive totems. Peterson has had solo exhibitions at Ratio 3 in San Francisco, Mary Goldman Gallery in Los Angeles, G Fine Art in Washington DC, Allston Skirt Gallery in Boston, and Door 7 Gallery in Oakland. His work has been exhibited broadly at institutions including the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Walter and McBean Galleries at the San Francisco Art Institute, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Pennsylvania. His work is held in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Deutsche Bank, J P Morgan Chase Art Collection, and the DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art, Athens, among others. Recipient of the 2019 Eureka Fellowship from the Fleischacker Foundation and a 2009 Pew Fellowship in the Arts, Ben has had residencies at Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA, and Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw, Poland.

H 15 in. x W 13 in. x D 7 in.