VIEWINGS BY APPOINTMENT, WEDNESDAYS - SATURDAYS, 12-5PM

Ochi Projects is pleased to present Ben Sanders: Poppies, an exhibition of recent acrylic paintings and pen and color pencil drawings by Los Angeles artist Ben Sanders, on view from December 5, 2020 to January 30, 2021. This is Sanders’ second show with the gallery.

In Poppies, Ben Sanders centers the Papaver somniferum or opium poppy flower. In a suite of panels and works on paper, graphic reductions of codified symbols float in airbrushed gradients of hazy pinks, violets, and greens. Abstract in their repetition, skulls, stems, flower buds and razors intertwine, mirror, and multiply, borrowing elements of one another to askew their own psychedelic anatomy. Hallucinatory colorfields of wonky blobs and swirls obscure the more sinister undertones of what would otherwise be a happy dystopia, a trip slowly spiraling out of control, unraveling in a dry pool of sparkling resin dust.

Somewhere on the pop side of Post Minimalism, Sanders’ work eschews easy listening. Tension between color and surface appear to vibrate within milky, void-like washes. Skulls and vines glide as much as grow, slick protuberances pulse mid-discharge in sensual, cautionary arrangements reminiscent of the sculptures of Ken Price and Ron Nagle, or painter Victor Estrada.

Like a fetish object or tarot card, the charmed poppies hint at a concealed magic. Opium is born of the poppy tear, the sap secreted from within the plant’s seed pod. Pleasure achieved and pain abated from the same elixir. The allure of fantastic escape or drip of salvation both cut only by the emblematic Sans Serif TOYOTA, like the rear view of pickup truck receding into the desert night at the end of a public service announcement — it’s all drugs, kids. Crystalized in swathes of protuberances and pollen, Sanders’s starry eyed organisms host the arcana of another trade, linking Middle America to another far off place. This too, in a puff of smoke.

Ben Sanders is a multi-disciplinary artist who lives and works in Los Angeles. Sanders received his B.F.A. from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. His work has been exhibited throughout the United States and internationally, as well as commissioned by clients, big and small, throughout the world, including Nike, Dropbox, Louis Vuitton, and The New York Times. Most recently, Sanders’ work has been exhibited at Ochi Projects in Los Angeles, Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles, Asya Geisberg in New York, Left Field in San Luis Obispo, Carl and Sloan in Portland, and LVL3 in Chicago. 

For Sanders, practices of gardening and cocktail-making hold as much value as a process-rich, finely rendered painting. Complementing his studio work is an enthusiastic, open-ended list of activities, materials and processes, inspired by the domestic and the designed. Whether facilitating highly curated social experiences involving food and beverages, or working with members of diverse, non-art communities, Sanders welcomes the influence of the everyday as a path towards meaning.

Pauli Ochi