Welcome
Thank you for visiting The 2013 Collection: the online gallery for artist Joe Benham. Please excuse the appearance of this website, as it is currently UNDER CONSTRUCTION.
In the mean time, feel free to browse any of these images, or read Joe's biograpohy. You can also vist our online Zazzle store. We are also open to suggestions, so feel free to request anything that you'd like to have printed on with one of our images and we'll look into having it for you at no extra cost.
For now, you can conatact us at joebenham@yahoo.com. And if you know have a gallery, or know of any artist gigs, fairs, or exhibits which you feel to be a good fit for this style of art, don't hesitate to let us know.
ENJOY!
click to enlarge
Fool
Open Heart
Kai Kai Emerges
Makarta-Ken
Jazzy Smile
Warrior
Seal
Dragon-Bull
Mudskipper
Fish-Boy
Dinosaur Elder
Starship J-7
Unicorn
Eggstone
Masked Super Hero
Departing Ship
Head Dress
Shamman
Starship 7-A
Motorcycle
Old Clown
Reaching Higher
Philosopher
Stinger Dance
Hip-Hop
Warboot
Glyph
Red-Black Sevens
King Boart
Kangi
Tomato Vine
Stone Oracle
Saddle
Starship 7-Z
Dead Tree on a Hill
There was and old woman
who lived in a brownstone...
Kung Fu (or dog if you like)
Starbike Racing Through Aeries
Dragon EggABOUT THE ARTIST:
Joe Benham was born in Concord, California in 1970 and began creating abstract art in this unique style at around 1989. At the time, he was studying architecture and had also become involved in the charismatic renewal. The inspiration to draw in this spontaneous way seemed to "just come to him one day".
Over the course of nearly 20 years, several career changes and some life experience, Joe amassed and filed away a modest body of work, which he would later gave away to his friends, one day in the Spring of 2008. Alpha Lo (one of Joe's friends and an accomplished artist in his own right), making note of what he thought of as some stylistic similarities, introduced Joe to a well known Marin-based abstract artist by the name of Marge Rector.
Marge became something of a mentor for Joe over the course of the next six to eight months (bringing us to the present time of this writing). In that time, he has produced a body of over 40 new original works and been exhibited in two Bay Area shows.
It can be said that Joe's style is not purely abstract, although the spontaneity in his pen-and-ink work is basically the same as that of other abstract artists. The simple yet profound difference is in his allowing of the emergence of interpretative forms, which is something that more traditional abstract artists generally try to steer clear of.
Joe is continually inspired to create new art and finds that there is equal inspiration to be found in the interpretation of it (his own as much as anyone else's). Joe believes that it is somehow possible for Spirit to emerge through art and that the style he uses can be used by anybody toward this end, for both its creation and interpretation.
Joe Benham Currently lives in Fairfax, California.
