M. Benjamin Herndon
[2016, MFA Printmaking]

Based in Providence, RI

M. Benjamin Herndon’s RISD Craft Gallery

My prints and drawings feature abstract imagery in the vein of Minimalism, but with a tendency toward organic, natural forms. The drawings are handmade graphite paint and silverpoint on watercolor paper, and appear like solid masses of black until they’re illuminated, at which point they reveal rippling textures caused by hundreds of individual silverpoint lines and/or polished graphite fields. The prints carry these concerns into their medium-specific qualities, such as lithographic tusche or the vibrating line of characteristic of drypoint.

What are some of the most important practices for your creative process?

Experimentation within my self-assigned-parameters of materials and processes is always a guiding feature in my work. For me, the question “what will happen if…” is often what sustains my creative pursuits, and has lead to exciting discoveries as well as inevitable dead-ends.

How does your current creative practice tie into your time spent at RISD?

Many of my drawings and prints that will be available during Craft come directly from processes I first discovered through research as a graduate student at RISD and have since been refining. As a faculty member in the RISD printmaking department, I find some time when not helping students to make a few prints of my own in Benson Hall.

Tell us about some of your main sources of inspiration.

I’m always inspired by the interaction of nature with the built environment, such as the geometries created by sunlight moving across architecture, and mossy stonewalls in forests. These visual indications of time are calming and meditative, as well as being formally interesting and often beautiful. I also find great inspiration in the history of art, particularly 20th century Minimalism and many centuries worth of Japanese design and architecture.

Any recent press, exhibitions, achievements or awards you’d like to share with us?

I’m looking forward to my first solo exhibition of paintings this fall at A R E A Gallery in Boston.

To see more of Benjamin’s work, visit mbenjaminherndon.com