My Friends Who Also Make Art - Benji Haselhurst

Since I'm currently in Gainesville, most of the active young artists I know are attending or have attended the University of Florida at the College of Fine Arts. I'll go on the record saying that I'm pretty unimpressed with the majority of what's coming out of the school. Granted, that's just my opinion and my personal biases and what not, but most of it is just plain uninteresting to me. This is hardly surprising since, when you take Miami out of the equation, there isn't a whole lot going for Florida as far as contemporary or modern art goes - especially outside of academic institutions. That being said, I'm fortunate enough to have a few friends who are actively creating amazing work and I'd thought I would periodically post about these talented individuals and what it is that they do that impresses me so.

One of these friends is Benji Haselhurst. I can't say enough good things about his work, and he's been a huge source of inspiration and guidance for me. Whenever one of us begins or finishes something, one always contacts the other to discuss and gain a second opinion, and he's one of the few friends I have that I can trust with such conversations. Of course, this is often one-sided as he is far more proactive about his work. Plus, he's just plain better at it than I am. 

"Future Days," watercolor on synthetic paper, 2008 

Benji's work represents the facet of modern art I find most appealing - highly imaginative visual work using intriguing conceptual approaches with varying media with the eye and draftsmanship of an illustrator. The piece shown, "Future Days," isn't even his most recent. Unfortunately, I don't think he has a lot of his stuff online (EDIT: here are his flickr account and his blog).

When his new series is completed and if he ever gets them photographed, I will be sure to post them here. If you'd rather see them in person, they'll be up at the Warphouse on Friday, November 20th at around 7-10 pm here in town.