Ben Grasso - 2

"Colored Lights"  86x94"  Oil on Canvas  2011

"Fall Together"  68x42"  Oil on Canvas  2011

"Construction Proposal #9"  70x42"  Oil on Canvas  2011

"Construction Proposal II"  45x42"  Oil on Paper  2009

"Ungrounded"  50x70"  Oil on Canvas  2011

I recently stumbled on Ben Grasso's website again. I was just as thrilled as when I first came across it. (I first posted his work in September, 2009). His paintings of buildings lifting, exploding, flying apart or flying somehow mysteriously together give new life to the term deconstruction. He uses long clean brushstrokes like boards, putting them together piece by piece to build his vision. Unlike real boards he can place them securely in mid-air where they hover above, below or between other boards, so that one has the sense of intense dynamic forces frozen in time. They feel like stills from an animated sequence. But there is often an ambiguity as to which way the sequence should run. I'm reminded that our imagination is the source of all creative and of all destructive acts. Action is impossible without thought and Ben Grasso is showing us a place where the two appear as one. There is a lot of work on his website, all of it worth looking through: bengrasso.com