James R. Connor University Center

Walled Gardens Exhibit Preview

To view the full exhibit, please visit Roberta’s Art Gallery in the UC on the main level

Artist: Ben Orozco

Artist Bio:

Ben Orozco is a Colombian-American artist and designer based in Madison, WI. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2019 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts with concentrations in Neon/Glass, Graphic Design, and Sculpture. In 2020, he completed a 9-month Fulbright-Hays fellowship in Småland, Sweden, researching Swedish glass and neon design and techniques. His work can be found in New Glass Review 41 and 42 (Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY) and has been exhibited at the Imagine Museum (St. Petersburg, FL), Hunterdon Museum of Art (Hunterdon, NJ), Glass Factory Museum (Boda, Sweden), and Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (Madison, WI). He is currently participating in the Bridge Work: Madison 2021-23 program, hosted by Arts + Literature Laboratory (Madison, WI).

Artist Statement:

I exist within the slippery realm of 2.5 dimensions, a concept defined by neuroscientist David Marr. In the spaces I inhabit, my eyes search for contours, grids, and patterns, forming the first stages of vision. Moving between flatness and depth, I explore tangible and implied spaces; those that are clear to my eyes, and those that reveal something more complex. I search for the moments when the developing scene neither comes together nor falls apart. Like a sea of noise with no focal point, a lack of resolution draws my attention to the greater systems I occupy. My eyes and mind are constantly shifting as I assess my relationship to my identity and environment, my figure and ground.

Through illustrations of bodies, plants, and lines, I re-encode the spaces I inhabit and the relationships I carry with them. I survey satellite images, optical illusions, photographs, and diagrams to identify landscapes, components of a system, or camouflage masking an entirely different reality. I anchor myself in these spaces by tracing shadows, cutting paper, bending contours, and forming matrices. I remove planes, simplify details, and project into new dimensions of light and space as I re-cast scenes in paper, neon, canvas, and glass. Taking up a full visual field, my sculptures and installations create spaces that are compressed and synthesized, left to continue being re-examined and reassessed.