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Ben Cooney, (b.1980), is a self-taught artist whose paintings are open-ended invitations into a place of Otherness, where fantasy and reality blur. Working predominantly in oils, the work seeks to question and explore the notions of identity, perception and desire. Often appearing soft and playful upon first glance, a second look typically reveals an air of disquiet bubbling away beneath the surface. Cooney currently lives and paints in Sheffield, UK.
Hi Ben. Before publishing this bio piece I got curious about your work. So thank you for taking the time to sit down with me to answer these questions. First question is: How does a regular day look like for you in Sheffield, England?
Hopefully it’ll start early-ish, breakfast, coffee and a puzzle, spend some time with the cat that visits every morning, feed the squirrels, do any house stuff that needs doing (laundry, cleaning, groceries)…then hopefully be in the studio for the rest of the day, make food about 7pm, then, if it’s dry outside, go skating.
I’ve been interviewing a lot of amazing artists recently, who were also heavily into skating. My question is this.. What do you think it is about skater kids that makes them turn into such great artist? And What does skating do for you?
Well, for me it originally gave me identity and community, this was in 1997 so it was still a fairly outsider activity, which is definitely why I found my way to it. It also gave me something to do and somewhere to be at any given time, and on my own if necessary, which was a lot of the time, and it still totally does all those things. Much like art.
The whole art side of things in skating was also one of the initial attractions as well, it’s just so embedded in skating, and it exposed me to so many amazing artists over the years.
Skateboarding can be a very special thing and it definitely gives you a different way of looking at the world. It tends to get into all areas of your life if you let it, and I think it’s something to do with that as to why a lot of great artists are skaters also.
Who or what are the oddly shaped figures in your paintings and what do they symbolize?
I think they’re manifestations of the friction and schism that occurs internally when how we see ourselves doesn’t align with how we are seen by others. They’ve been shaped and sculpted by external forces and have reached a point where they are now trying to reshape themselves in order regain some power over themselves.
They most likely exist in a place where authentic expression isn’t always celebrated, or even tolerated, and have historically found themselves in the shadows, margins and spaces in between. Maybe now they are exploring the idea that they are (or should be) totally free to reinvent and reveal themselves over and over as necessary, and that expressing themselves authentically is an act of resistance, liberation and self-empowerment.
You add faces to various different objects. And sometimes you add objects to human bodies as well. Talk to me a little bit about that. What’s the background story. How do you come up with them?
I think it’s to do with the idea of being able to sculpt and reveal yourself at will, transformation I suppose, wearing a painted facade if you need to, pulling it off when you feel comfortable enough to do so. There’s elements of symbolism and coding in there too, some personal, some classical. I see flowers as symbols of hope, and I’ve been really into painting vases/vessels for a while now, especially as replacement heads. I like what I feel they stand for; carrying and nurturing life, protection, they’re made from the earth. They can also be decorated and adorned…wearing a painted face to face the world. That’s partly where adding the faces came from I think, wearing a painted face, like make up…but also I vaguely remember a drawing I did some years ago of some faces drawn on objects (maybe rocks?) and writing ‘Making Friends’ under it, that might’ve been where that started.
Can you tell me a little bit about your creative process. From start to end result?
I suppose I’m a fairly intuitive (impulsive?) painter. My paintings are rarely planned out, I have to just start them, or I think I never would. Occasionally there might be a tiny thumbnail sketch, but I think that can be more of a hindrance, I might overthink myself out of painting it if I have an image to think about in the first place…so it’s best if I just stand there and see what happens, which can be a bit nerve-wracking. There’s a certain amount of anxiety around the uncertainty, but I think that’s just part of how it happens…they tend to grow and evolve in front of me. I think there’s a certain amount of magic in surprise, maybe I’m chasing that…I really thrive on mystery and wonder, and I think they’re big motivators and frames of reference actually. Sometimes it feels like I’m trying to sculpt something, but in paint, that I can sort of vaguely see in my mind’s eye, and then that thing might suddenly need dressing, and a wig, and accessories.
There’s always music, that helps. And books…I didn’t realise it, but I’d been practicing a sort of bibliomancy/stichomancy for a long time as a method for inspiration if I was particularly stuck…I’ll pull a book off the shelf, open it and see what my eyes fall on, not literally, like ‘paint a rock in a pink shirt’, it’ll be more a phrasing or a word combination that leads to a feeling, that makes me want to paint. Writing too, I sometimes write haiku and acrostic poems in the morning to get my head into a certain space, and sometimes these help with titling the works later on.
One of my favourite parts of the whole process, is sometimes I’ll enter a certain state where I’m not thinking, I’m just stood there watching my hands do the work, that feels pretty magical, but once I realise it’s happening, I usually surface back into full consciousness. Sometimes while I’m painting I’ll get a sensation of having seen or painted the work before, that’s pretty fun in an eerie sort of way.
For me, painting feels like a sort of mirror I suppose, or actually maybe more a like a transparent reflective surface, a window? So you can see in and through, but you might see yourself looking back at the same time, and obviously that changes depending on whoever is doing the looking. As a viewer, if you catch your reflection in a work, that can be a pretty special feeling.
What are some of your favorite things to do when you’re not painting?
Nature, hot drinks, snacks…but I’m usually just daydreaming about when I can skate next.
