V Benjamin

Artist Bio

V Benjamin is a self-taught, multidisciplinary artist based in Cincinnati, Ohio. Born in 1995, he was first introduced to drawing and visual storytelling by his father, a gifted sketch artist. V’s creative path began with writing, developing a strong affinity for literature, poetry, and wordplay.

In 2016, inspired by the pop-culture revival of Bob Ross, V began exploring oil landscapes. What started as a curiosity quickly grew into an all-consuming practice of painting, drawing, and mark-making – a search for meaning beyond language and representation.

Working in isolation between 2018 and 2025, V developed a personal visual vocabulary of symbols, textures, and gestures. His pieces blend poetic fragments, dream-like figures, and psychological mapping – often revealing states of vulnerability, obsession, and transcendence. His process is intuitive, unfiltered, and often compulsive, echoing the spirit of Art Brut pioneers such as Adolf Wölfli. V’s work invites viewers into a space where narrative collapses into sensation – a mirror of the unconscious, layered with both intensity and fragility. Each piece is a meditation on memory, the fragmentation of thought, and the urgent need to be seen.

Artist Statement 

My paintings are an attempt to capture those fleeting moments of thought that we all experience. Those flashes of words, images, concepts, and memories that flow like water through my mind as I go about my day, here for a nanosecond and then lost to the aether forever. I force these vanishing instants into physical reality through heavy, direct mixed-media layering. I use a multitude of materials including acrylic, watercolor, ink, charcoal, oil pastel, and more to create depth and complexity, leaving the viewer with a desire to take a closer look with sharper focus to catch all the nuanced details of each piece.

The art I create is entirely intuitive. There is never a plan when I stand in front of the canvas or paper. When I am in my studio, my subconscious mind is in total control. Those thoughts that are repressed or ignored so that I can function in day-to-day life are able to be fully acknowledged and embodied. While I am able to conjure strong and vivid images in my mind’s eye, the majority of my thoughts are processed as words. This inspired me to incorporate writing into my paintings. The words are the most direct method of externalizing those fleeting mental moments, pinning them to the wall to be felt, analyzed, and understood. This process has acted as a journal, a diary of my innermost self, and at times, prophecy.

When the viewer stands before my work, I hope that it inspires them to pause and observe the subliminal stream of thoughts and ideas that flow in their own minds. I want these pieces to act as a mirror, inviting the viewer to delve deeper into who they are at the core of their being and reflect on the “self”. As my work is intrinsically linked to my mental health, I want those suffering with the turmoil of their minds to find solace and comfort knowing that they are not alone and to feel that they are seen and understood.

Art Brut

The term Art Brut emerged in 1945 to name a kind of art that long predated it. French painter Jean Dubuffet (1901–1985) – its most energetic advocate, collector, and theorist – introduced the phrase. In his 1949 essay L’art brut préféré aux arts culturels (“Art Brut preferred to cultural art”), he described it as work made by people largely untouched by artistic schooling or fashions, where imitation is minimal and expression springs from within rather than from the clichés of classical or stylish art.

Art Brut is both a social and an aesthetic phenomenon. Socially, it often comes from artists at the margins – solitary or outcast individuals, including some in psychiatric institutions or prisons whose spirit of rebellion resists accepted norms and values. Aesthetically, it remains comparatively free of tradition and trend. Its makers frequently invent their own visual languages and techniques, producing singular, intensely personal images.

The Visible Mind – V Benjamin and the Spirit of Art Brut

Art Brut is often described as raw, instinctive, or outsider art. At its simplest, it emerges from impulse, not instruction. V Benjamin’s work belongs to this spirit.

His paintings move between mask-like faces, symbolic figures, dense abstraction, and fragments of handwritten text. The human presence is central, yet never fixed. Faces emerge boldly or dissolve into color. Words appear as statements, doubts, or revisions. Paint is layered, crossed out, splashed, dragged. The surface records process, not polish.

Like Jean Dubuffet or Adolf Wölfli, V works without relying on academic refinement. Images develop organically through intuition. Meaning is not neatly composed; it forms through repetition, revision, and confrontation. The paintings feel less planned than uncovered.

Language plays a crucial role. Phrases are written directly onto the canvas, sometimes legible, sometimes interrupted or overwritten. They do not explain the image. They reveal thought in motion. The viewer witnesses a mind working through emotion rather than presenting a finished conclusion.

In the more abstract works, gesture replaces figure, yet the human presence remains. Explosive color, dense mark-making, and abrupt linear interventions suggest inner pressure released onto the surface. These are not formal exercises. They are emotional terrains.

What connects all of V Benjamin’s work is urgency. The paintings do not seek elegance. They seek honesty. They exist where vulnerability and deviance meet. In this way, his practice carries the spirit of Art Brut into the present. It reminds us that art does not need perfection to have power. It needs conviction.

V’s work holds that conviction.