New Work — Benjamin Staker

I want to slowly disappear / I want to become a tree

Oil stick on yupo, 48 × 30 inches

“There are some feelings that resonate so strongly within me they are like a deep booming echo in my painfully hollow chest. A dazzling celebration of beauty and yet an aching, a sweaty palmed terror. Discordance between within and without. An inexplicable, tremendous, heart rending intensity of feeling that could only be described as such. Pure feeling stripped down to its core and lain bare. A moment in time recognized for what it truly was: a point of no return.”

Oil stick on yupo, 60 x 48 inches

I want to feel the swell in my heart as I turn a corner as I walk towards home

Oil stick on yupo, 30 × 24

“And on the other side of clearing there is a lamp, and the reflection in the scummy pond bends the light, and the horizon is turned upside down. And suddenly there is a feeling that overtakes all of me, fills me to my tingling cold extremities…”

Oil stick on yupo, 30 x 24 inches

“…A feeling of Immense appreciation of being where I am, crouched in a bush, overlooking a pond. Of having cold fingers and toes and pink ears and snot running down my upper lip. Of the speck of dirt in my eye and the smell of the loamy earth. Love for it all, and the intensity of being here, being now, being everything.”

Oil stick on yupo, 30 x 24 inches

Strangers on the sidewalk / silent night with siren

Oil stick on yupo, 30 × 24 inches

Followed by my own shadow / pursued by the absence of me

Oil stick on yupo,30 × 24 inches

The way forward / lines and shapes and a man in the distance.

Oil stick on yupo, 30 × 24 inches

Followed by my own shadow / pursued by the absence of me (in encaustic)

Encaustic and oil pastel on panel, 30 × 24 inches

You, them, everything (murmuration series #3)

Charcoal on paper, 32 × 42 inches

You, them, everything (murmuration series #1)

Charcoal on paper, 32 × 42 inches

You, them, everything (murmuration series #4)

Charcoal on paper, 32 × 42 inches

You, them, everything (murmuration series #2)

Charcoal on paper, 32 × 42 inches

#1 I'm afraid of crowded places / but I take my fear with me into the woods / and instead I fear tics or bats. / I'm afraid of dying but / I love the smell of moss and fungi / And dead things are a part of this forest / Just as much as I am

Oil pastel on yupo mounted to panel, 9 x 12 inches

#2 I'm afraid of crowded places / but I take my fear with me into the woods / and instead I fear tics or bats. / I'm afraid of dying but / I love the smell of moss and fungi / And dead things are a part of this forest / Just as much as I am

Oil pastel on yupo mounted to panel, 9 x 12 inches

#3 I'm afraid of crowded places / but I take my fear with me into the woods / and instead I fear tics or bats. / I'm afraid of dying but / I love the smell of moss and fungi / And dead things are a part of this forest / Just as much as I am

Oil pastel on yupo mounted to panel, 9 x 12 inches

#4 I'm afraid of crowded places / but I take my fear with me into the woods / and instead I fear tics or bats. / I'm afraid of dying but / I love the smell of moss and fungi / And dead things are a part of this forest / Just as much as I am

Oil pastel on yupo mounted to panel, 9 x 12 inches

Broken reflection / autumn ground

Oil stick on yupo, 30 × 40 inches

The closer I get to the lights in the distance / the more I think to myself, maybe god is real / and here, and in the air, and everything

Watercolor and pastel on paper stretched to canvas, 36 × 24 inches

god isn’t real / but life is beautiful anyways / I wish I could freeze this moment / and never forget how the world smells right now

Watercolor and pastel on paper stretched over canvas, 24 × 36 inches

Walking home / the cover of leaves

Oil stick on yupo, 24 × 18 inches

Wine dark sea / wine eyed wandering / heavy feet / listless sinking / alone in the landscape / but underfoot there lies / a millennia of you.

Oil stick on yupo, 30 x 60 inches

#1 It is there in the expanse of green, the agoraphobic shudder that wracks my body. It is there in the claustrophobic sky, the shriek that I hold in my mouth.

Oil stick and oil pastel on yupo, 24 x 36 inches

#2 It is there in the expanse of green, the agoraphobic shudder that wracks my body. It is there in the claustrophobic sky, the shriek that I hold in my mouth.

Oil stick and oil pastel on yupo, 24 x 36 inches

#3 It is there in the expanse of green, the agoraphobic shudder that wracks my body. It is there in the claustrophobic sky, the shriek that I hold in my mouth.

Oil stick and oil pastel on yupo, 24 x 36 inches

On the mountain that I now dream of / there is a gash carved through by gentle water / here there are little fires everywhere

Pastel on watercolor paper, 44 x 144 inches

“And he finds these places where he might disappear. He finds things that fill the screaming vacuum at the base of his stomach, at the floor of his abdomen, where instinct lives and drives him deeper, to pursue the night, and to pursue the dark“

Oil stick and oil pastel on yupo, 30 x 48 inches

Something I Once Dreamt: Imagined Landscapes #1

Oil pastel on yupo, 14 x 18 inches

Something I Once Dreamt: Imagined Landscapes #2

Oil pastel on yupo, 12 x 18 inches

Something I Once Dreamt: Imagined Landscapes #3

Oil pastel on yupo, 12 x 18 inches

Something I Once Dreamt: Imagined Landscapes #4

Oil pastel on yupo, 14 x 18 inches

And I feel something, just beyond my reach. A person lurking perhaps, with salacious intent? A moment of pleasure perhaps to twist my insides? Or something deeper perhaps, something wonderful and horrible and frightening and huge.”

Oil stick and oil pastel on yupo 24 x 30 inches