Benjamin Bellas straddles sentiment and intellect through his multimedia practice, casting everyday objects as focal points of introspection. His work often acts as an estuary between contemporary visual art and literature, between text and imagery. Through the subtle combination of found objects, interventions, creative writing and quotidian gestures, Bellas attempts to understand the experience of understanding; cognition itself. Primary to his concerns are the ways in which image and text may conspire to alter one’s vision or understanding.
Bellas has presented public lectures on his work at venues such as the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the University of Oregon, the University of South Florida, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Luce Foundation Center. His work has been included in group exhibitions and screenings at venues such as Contemporary Istanbul; Track 16, Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; la Space, Hong Kong; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago; and Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki. He is the recipient of a Franklin Furnace Fund grant, and his work has been published in literary journals such as The Pinch, Hunger Mountain, Jet Fuel Review, LIT, and Redivider among others.
