Professional Member

Benjamin Rankin

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Benjamin Rankin completed the MFA at the Glasgow School of Art in Scotland. Originally from New Zealand, he is now a Montrealer having lived and worked there for 20 years. Following education and practice as an architect, he chose to focus on painting, maintaining a studio and exhibiting over the past 16 years.

My practice explores the relationship of images to memory and in turn to national, cultural and personal identities. It is influenced by my background as an Architect and as a person who has lived in many different nations. A passion for understanding identity has led me to explore philosophy and psychology. My painting is driven by my desire to express my perspective of an individual in relation to the world.
I am inspired by personal and public images from the recent and distant past. I feel that memory has a profound influence on identity and that memory and identity are constantly changing, as they are seen through the lens of the present. My paintings are open works, evoking the sense of a fluctuating relationship between memory and identity.
My works are derived from photographic source material of cultural, political and personal significance. The draftsman’s grid is used as a means of reconstructing the image yet becomes influential and evident in the painted work.
I have exhibited internationally for 12 years. The works I have shown in the past 5 years have focused on national and cultural identities and their correspondent collective memories. Two paintings dealing with the nature of national identity were accepted for exhibition in the Royal Scottish Academy. I won the Chalet Prize at a Glasgow Artist run gallery for a painting concerned with cultural identity. Having completed an MFA at the Glasgow School of Art, I reestablished my studio in Montreal seven years ago.

RAAV is the representative association of visual artists in Quebec

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