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Ben Avant was born in Alpine, Texas in the vicinity of Marfa and Big Bend National Park and home of Sul Ross State University. It was in Alpine where he received his first lessons in oil painting at the age of five. He has had a lifelong passion for oils and all drawing media.
Mr. Avant began his career in the visual arts in 1991 as a member of Asylum Gallery in Denver, whose membership has since branched out into other prominent galleries such as Core New Art Space, Pirate, and Edge. While at Asylum, he discovered another artistic passion, life drawing.
Mr. Avant was a founding member of the Art Junction, which is a subsidiary of the El Paso Art Association. He served on the committee of the Arts International Exhibition in 2003 and was a featured artist in the show in 2001 and 2003. He received First Place awards at the EPAA Fall Show in 2000 and 2002. Additionally, he has shown in a number of other international, national and local juried shows.
In 2003, Ben and Sally Avant established Avant Studio and Gallery in El Paso, Texas and maintained it as a physical venue for their art and other selected artists for two and a half years. Exhibits there were eclectic and alternative and allowed established and emerging artists to showcase their work.
Ben Avant now lives and works at his studio in Canutillo, Texas. No longer having the responsibilities of the owner of a commercial gallery, he finds more time to create and promote his own art.
| Artist Biography |
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| Artist Statement |
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What inspires me as an artist are my models (mostly women , and frequently birds and other animals); my contemporaries in the art world; Salvador Dali and numerous other surrealists which include Rene Magritte, Joan Miro, Yves Tanguy and Max Ernst. There are other influences as well such as Gustav Klimt, Wassily Kandinsky and Max Parrish. Also important is my continuing interest in contemporary genres like conceptual art and twenty-first century surrealism. Plein air painting is another of my ongoing passions. Colors that inspire me are frequently rainbow colors, so I use a lot of rare genuine pigments to attain the intensity, also relying on earth tones and more somber colors to complete the palette. I often paint in a genre that is unbecoming of what others have come to expect of me because I dislike repetition and predictability. While drawing heavily on the influence of other artists both living and dead, I believe very strongly that invention, rather than imitation is the key to the sublime level of attainment to which I aspire.
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