the Street Pop artist
It’s the story of a guy who first had been a boy. It was 40 years ago. The kind of guy who likes to draw instead of hitchhiking. His travels are made through cartoon speech bubbles. “When I was a kid, super-heros were my teddy bears. I never liked teddy bears. Most kids need a personal object that they hang around with all the time. I had the super-heros that I loved to hang around with. I learned a lot about life with them and they helped me grow up. More than a fascination for my childhood, they represent the diversity of human nature. Good and evil, fear, fantasies, heroism, etc.”
Nevertheless, Benjamin SPaRK decides at the age of 25 that it’s about time to grow up and starts to run a web site design business. Business plan and smartphone, a new destiny for him and no places for comic strips. But something inside speaks differently. At the 28, everything falls down and Benjamin throws his life away and takes his color pencils only to draw all day long. He takes drawing master classes at the renown Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris and then leaves for New-York to improve his skills. “I came back with Jean-Michel BASQUIAT in my backpack. Hi spirit is in each and every painting I make since then.”
By working hours and hours in the basement of his apartment, he found a way of mixing all kind of influences: graffiti, comic strips, manga, pop art and painting. Benjamin’s visual work places common iconic images from advertising, entertainment, and cartoons into startling juxtapositions that are often confrontational and iconoclast. “Thanks to the influence of Basquiat, I have devised a new dimension to the comic book icons in which they are freed from the panels and their words burst out of the bubbles”. The detonation of his graphic fireworks has not yet exhausted its potential for sparking ! Benjamin SPaRK lives and works in Brussels.
November 2011 : "Plastic Night", major artistic event - Brussels
October 2011 : group show at auction house - Cornette de St Cyr - Paris
April 2011 : solo show - Entrepot Gallery - Monaco
February 2011 : Lille Art Fair
June 2010 : group show "B19" - Art Temptation Gallery - Brussels
April 2010 : "HEARTS" - solo show - Bertheas Gallery - France
April 2009 : group show - Austin Gallery – London
March 2009 : solo show - Bertheas Gallery - France
2007 Geraldine Zberro Gallery, Paris
2006 "Printemps Français de Manille" - Group show – Philippines
2005 Grand Marché d’Art Contemporain - Paris
2004 ARCK Gallery - group show - Paris
2004 Gillet Gallery - group show - Paris
benjamin SPaRK with
ERRO and SPEEDY GRAPHITO