Managing Editor
A Southern man known who’s now known within the Los Angeles creative scene as Mr. Benja, artist Benjamin Johnson kicked off his life in New Orleans, Louisiana and grew up in Tallahassee, Florida.
He hit the gallery scene four years ago in San Diego but has been creating art in various capacities since early high school.
“I moved to California to destroy my life by developing videogames,” said Johnson, who now works as a video-game designer.
The 38-year-old now lives in the Culver City area. “I need to be in walking distance of all those sweet galleries,” Johnson said.
He’s worked for companies such as Rockstar Games and Sony Santa Monica and also does graphic design and runs an art group called 8-Bit Cubist. The artistic sensibility doesn’t fall far from the tree.
“I got started learning art from my father, who is a classically trained sign-maker and portrait artist,” he said. “From there, I studied and learned on my own.”
Primarily creating with acrylic and collage, Johnson also makes use of spray paint, screenprinting and inks here and there.
“I have always had a home studio set up so I don’t have to be far from my craft,” he said. “Any type of commute would mess with my productivity, especially out here in L.A. Life and work need to be in close proximity for me.”
Your artist business card states that you “paint game stuff on collages.” Tell me about that and what it stems from.
Oh, yeah. I have a few little slogans that I put on my cards whenever I create a set. Basically, my art juxtaposes the fantasy with the real. The game represents the fantasy we live in, and the collage represents the real world that we tend to render as background noise. I see everything as this big game that we’re all playing.
I noticed on your Facebook artist page that you’ve recently been working on some collages that utilize nude shots from magazines. Is this something new, and what’s it all about?
Those magazines are just the raw form of the ‘sex sells’ attitude that we have and our media reflects. Using them is not really a new concept for me— it’s just that I’m just now getting around to it in a more obvious sense. I didn’t want to start off with too much overtly sexual work, because that kind of thing can skew people’s view of your work if it’s released too early or if there’s too much of it. I also don’t care to shock people for the sake of being shocking. That’s a bit contrived. Besides, how could I not reference aspects of “game”?
How do you feel when people ask you to explain the meaning of your art, like I’m doing?
I absolutely love having art discussions, but enjoying a particular exchange depends on the person. It goes good when we can start looking at how the art relates to life. Topics can be from the artsy-fartsy angle, the financial angle, decorative angle, or whatever. I suppose the only thing that bothers me is when people just want me to say something weird so they can tell their friends about their weird discussion with me. Those types of exchanges are a perfectly good waste of my weirdness.
Which creative medium would you love to pursue but haven’t yet?
Site-specific installations. I want to mess with people in a more spatial sense. The medium is the message, right? Well, I totally believe that. And as the message evolves, the medium I use will change to reflect that. For example, I just released a zine. No other format was going to fit for the ideas that went into that.
Christian magazine on panel
Well, it’s definitely made it harder for me to have mundane discussions. Every day, my discussions get more esoteric. I think it ends up being a good thing for me because I get to skip past the boring topics. People always have some strange viewpoints they want to discuss but don’t get the chance to. I go straight for sex, politics, gender, religion, race, or just some non-sequitur nonsense. And my family just wants me to make pretty Christmas cards for them, so there’s that too.
What’s your favorite art piece that someone else has done?
Wait. What? Like of all time?!? My mind just went spinning. Well, uh…I can’t remember the name of it, but it was this big, complex painting by Basquiat that I saw with some art friends. After spending a day looking at lots of art, we came upon the Basquiat, and an argument immediately broke out. The entire range of emotions were covered, and we kept debating the different aspects of the painting. In the end, we were all heavily impacted by the painting, but no one would really admit it, because you know…scribbles and ignorant stuff shouldn’t be worth that much. I was impressed that the art got that kind of reaction out of us. And then there was the Sistine Chapel ceiling. I cried like a man when I saw that in person.
What’s your favorite piece that you yourself created?
Uh…I won’t say which one, because it’s a bit personal to me. I mean, my concepts are meant to seem outwardly simple, but if you read into them, you can hopefully get a lot from them. Anyway, I had created this one piece with a very particular person in mind. When I released the images, that person really liked it and ended up getting it from me in a pretty emotional moment. So as far as art goes, it expressed everything it was supposed to, and it made a little wrinkle in time for me. Makes me happy thinking about it.
Describe what the scene is like when you are making art.
Chaos. I mean, my process makes perfect sense to me, but a friend watched me work, and that’s what he called it. I am usually jumping between four and 15 paintings at one time, so it can appear a bit silly in the studio. The TV is spewing images, the stereo is playing music, the magazines are being torn up, sketches are all over the place, notes are being scribbled, and then I have painting materials strewn about. I see it as an assembly line of thoughts. Other people see a fantastic mess.
To view more of Johnson’s work, visit mrbenja.com .
