Benjamin Frederick Artist Biography

"I grew up as the middle of five kids. We would yearly visit my grandmother in Alabama and later in Tennessee. She was an artist and her house was full of paintings, which was formative to my belief in being an artist myself at an early age. My father was an architect, but he also made paintings when he was younger, and these always hung in our home. He and my mom have been a guiding force for our family. My painting "Porch Reader” is an image of him studying...For me, he is a great role model, as a father and husband. My work can be a reflection on this challenge as I include my family, my wife and kids, in it. I am particularlyinfluenced by Pierre Bonnard and Fairfield Porter, both of whom include family while simultaneously dealing with issues of abstraction."