Benjamin Billingsley          

Welcome to http://benjaminbillingsley.com!  Below are a few examples of current work - which can be viewed in more detail by visiting the gallery pages.
Scroll down for bio, details about special projects and events, and contact info.

About the Artist

Benjamin Billingsley is a painter and printmaker living in Wlimington, North Carolina.  He holds an MFA from UNCGreensboro (1995), where he studied under Walter Barker, William Collins and John Maggio.  Benjamin Billingsley has exhibited work in the Southeastern United States as well as in Estonia and Russia.

Ben works in a neo-expressionist mode, focusing on figurative and landscape subjects.  He favors acrylic paint, and usually paints with a palette knife.

Ben is the third generation artist and art instructor in his family.  His maternal grandfather, Robert Schellin, was a painter / printmaker / ceramicst based in Milwaukee, WI - he worked for the WPA during the Great Depression and taught art for the University of Wisconsin system for many years.  Ben's parents are Carl Billingsley (MFA, UWM) and Catherine Billingsley (MFA, ECU).  Carl is an award-winning sculptor whose work was displayed in downtown Wilmington, NC in 2008.  Catherine is a weaver specializing in large-scale tapestries.  Carl currently teaches at East Carolina University's School of Art and Design - Catherine has recently retired from teaching there. Please visit their site at http://www.billingsleyatelier.com/.

Ben has taught studio art and art history at Cape Fear Community College full-time since 2001.  In 2006 Benjamin Billingsley received the Marilyn Goodman Anderson Endowed Award for Excellence in Teaching.  (Courses taught include Drawing I and II, Painting I, Printmaking I and II, Design I, Studio, Portfolio and Resume, Art History Survey II, Survey of American Art, and Art Appreciation.)  Please visit CFCC's online galleries of student artwork at http://cfcc.edu/hfa/artgalleries.php.

SPECIAL ART PROJECTS

African-American Heritage Month Art Exhibitions at CFCC

Below:  One of 5 portraits in inspired by Jacob Lawrence/ Harlem Renaissance - exhibited Feb. 2010

Below: "I May Not Get There With You" - exhibited Feb. 2009.

ARTS POETICA @ CFCC - artists respond to poetry 

Below: My response to Lawrence Ferlinghetti's "I Am Waiting."  (Central image of triptych - drypoint viscosity prints.) - exhibited April 2009

Native-American Heritage Month Art Exhibitions at CFCC 

Below:  "The Raven" 18x24" woodcut Nov. 2008 - for more information see http://cfcc.edu/nahm/  

CONTACT THE ARTIST

Feel free to contact me at ben@benjaminbillingsley.com OR bbling71@aol.com

 

MY INFLUENCES INCLUDE: German Expressionism (particularly the Die Brücke movement), Fauvism (especially Matisse), and Bay Area Figuration (especially Richard Diebenkorn).

Check out:
Die Brücke at http://www.bruecke-museum.de/english.htm 
Matisse at http://www.musee-matisse-nice.org/anglais/index3.html &  http://www.henri-matisse.net/index.html
Diebenkorn at http://www.diebenkorn.org/ ; http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/diebenkorn_richard.html ; http://www.artchive.com/artchive/D/diebenkorn.html ; http://www.sfmoma.org/exhibitions/exhib_detail/98_exhib_diebenkorn.html 

NOTABLE PROJECTS 

Below are 4 paintings included in the 12x12x122 exhibition at the BECA gallery in New Orleans - summer 2009 - my first work shown in NOLA!

Below are 2 large woodcuts featured in Bottega's "Achromatics" Exhibition, March 24 - May 16, 2009.  Each is 24x36".  My largest woodcuts prior to the Big Print Block Party in May 2010!

My first encaustic paintings (2009)

Most recent still life painting (a subject I love but don't often work with) - Irises and Chrysanthemums - acrylic on canvas 2008

CURRENT EVENTS 

Puppet Parlour @ ACME (5th St. W'ton) - puppet-themed art exhibition.  Puppet Festival Opening Saturday 17 July 11am-2pm & Fourth Friday Gallery Night Friday 23 July 6-9pm

"The Creative Coalition: Projekte's Inaugural Exhibition" Opening Reception/Grand Opening:  Saturday July 31, 6 til late! - Corner of 3rd and Castle - see you there! 

Collagraph Worshop - August - Glenn Eure's Ghost Fleet Gallery in Nags Head.

Ben is exhibiting work in "Sense of Place II" at Glenn Eure's Ghost Fleet Gallery in Nags Head thru July 18 

"20/20: Filters of Light and Insight" @ Acme - info greypascal@live.com

Solo show "Full Bodied" at Wilmington Wine May-June 2010

"Arts Anonymous" exhibition June - Moore County Arts Council 

"Artists / Proof" - An exhibition of work by Ben and his CFCC printmaking students - Parallelogram, W'ton

April 8th - Ben was one of four speakers in the Spring Faculty Forum - "Being Human" - art as a necessary function of human evolution.  (May end up on local cable education channel!)