Tennis Painting #20 by Ben Evans

Tennis Painting #20 by Ben Evans

Ben Evans is a New York based illustrator that depicts some of the most wild, intimate and at times even gross scenes. When asked by Hunger TV in a recent interview where the inspiration comes from for his work, Evans jumps straight to it with the mention of intimacy, which of course plays a big role in his artwork. “The main inspirations I’ve been taking from are interiors that are familiar to me. I have a really deep connection with spaces and the way that humans interact inside a home,” he explains, adding “The figures are meant to embody the viewer and stand as something we can see in all of us.”

Ben Evans’ neo-noir, campy, Los Angeles house paintings reflect the artists’ output of visual stimulation he’s gathered from a rolodex of iconography that is meaningful to him. Whether it be Shelley Duvall, Slim Aarons’ pool photographs, or moms from his hometown “leasing their white Mercedes” the rolodex of imagery creates a visual language in the works unlike anyone else. The flat colors and oftentimes extreme lighting in the works add to the drama and bluntness of the large-scale paintings. “All the figures I paint are of friends and people who mean so much to me. But I also think that a lot of it is the divine femininity within myself.” Be it religious emblems or glamorous isolation, Evans considers himself a “conductor or imagery.”