Ben Denham

Born 1979, Sydney
Bachelor of Arts, Visual Arts
Graduation show: 2002
Graduation ceremony: 2003

Artwork in Space YZ  

Rewriting series, 2002-2007
Dual channel video with sound

Channel 1
Pulling Strings, 2005, 3:58 mins
Pulling Strings: a-e instructional, 2006, 1:38 mins

Channel 2
Space Between, 2002, 3:59 mins
No Strings: recursive, 2007, 3:29 mins

The Rewriting series of works began in 1999 when I was in second-year. I took an elective called Experimental Writing with lecturer Terry Hayes. I started doing automatic writing and writing in a cryptic way about my dreams when I was in first year in 1998. Terry's elective got me thinking about the performance of writing and its relationship to the body. The series continued into third-year, honours and my PhD work and was the grounding for my work with drawing machines that I continue to this day.

Rewrite three, 2000
performance

Everything that I do in my current practice has its roots, one way or another, in my experience studying Fine Arts at UWS. My time there gave me a suite of conceptual and technical strategies for making work that I still draw on today. The art school at Kingswood campus was exactly halfway between where I lived in the Blue Mountains and many of the places that I would go to see art and friends in the city. As I travelled on the train, during my undergraduate years, between my home, Kingswood and the city, I came to experience the campus as a centre or a hub that pulled in some of the most inspiring people from all over Sydney and the Blue Mountains.

Space Between (video stills), 2002
single channel video 3:59 mins