New Installation by Ben Butler is truly Unbounded
Perspective has been an amazing siren for me my entire life. City scapes, and drawing them has been a joy to learn. 1 point, 2 point, particularly 3 point perspective is just so incredibly freeing and emotive in my mind. To sketch random line after line that fits into the logical and rigid framework is simultaneously freeing and awe-inspiring… and naturally beautiful, mainly because of the rules, not in spite of the rules. Buildings can form and fall there. Modernist expanses can evolve and grow there. Potential. Perspective drawings and vantages are nothing but unbounded potential.
Which brings us to Ben Butler and his latest installation at Rice University Art Gallery in Houston Texas. Ben has created an art installation that utilizes over 10,000 sticks of poplar wood and 3,000 match sticks to hold the pieces together. The piece was not pre-thought out or planned. It formed organically in the gallery and it was designed as Ben went.
‘I was drawn to poplar because of its abundance, low cost, and its exceptional malleability,’ explains butler. ‘all of these factors allow for freedom of process, as I could easily generate a seemingly endless supply of materials. the hand-pegged, three-dimensional cubic grid is something that evolved in my studio over years of contemplating and playing with these sticks. previous works utilized the grid, but the space of rice gallery allowed for a large-scale exploration of the potential of this unit.’
As you watch the video of this installation check out the spaces and the tunnels and the gorgeous endlessness of this thing. I can’t even imagine having to tear this down at the end of its run on August 28. It is just such an organic beauty – a cross between a colony hive mind and maybe some alien race setting up shop in the Rice University art gallery. I’m in love.
