THE MONKEY CODEX
BENJAMIN THORPE
SVA MFA
Opening Reception: July 26, 7-10pm.
Saturday July 26, 12-6pm
Sunday July 27, 2-6pm
Monday July 28 to Wednesday July 30 by appointment (call 207-350-5104)
CODEX
CODEX by Benjamin Thorpe is part of the thesis exhibitions and events produced by members of the MFA Art Practice class of 2014 at the School of Visual Arts.
Medieval artisans were commonly referred to as “apes of nature,” an identity that some embraced with a degree of irony by drawing mischievous apes into the margins of illuminated manuscripts. The reflexivity of this imagery opens it up to being read as an embodied theory of art, forming the basis for Thorpe's thesis work.
The artist's research into illuminated manuscripts is presented at The Monkey Codex in the form of a picture book, but it also visibly influences his own drawings, which comprise most of the exhibition. The trappings of draftsmanship - linear perspective, the "hand study," the use of one's thumb to transfer proportion onto a page, etc - are recombined and remixed with simian playfulness. They conjure a world at once imaginative and captive to art history, wedged somewhere between figuration and abstraction. The opening reception will include a musical performance.
Benjamin Thorpe was born in Bangladesh and grew up between there and Maine. He is graduating from the Art Practice MFA program at the School of Visual Arts. He currently lives in Brooklyn, NY, and is a teacher at Imagine Swimming.
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