Background
Benjamin Pakuts was born in 1979 in Ottawa, Canada. He attended the Arts Canterbury program at Canterbury High School in Ottawa and apprenticed with the late Dennis Tourbin.
Ben is co-founder and designer of eco-friendly company, b-love clothing.
He currently lives Toronto, Canada.
Personal Statement
My paintings are crafted in the hope of re-awakening our consciousness to the current landscape. My passion is both the power of the natural world and the way people interact with it. I like to paint local environs, both natural and manmade, as not only do these meld with my beliefs but they are two very important elements in maintaining our past and determining our future.
The ideas for my works are formed from a multitude of different sources: visualizing and creating colour and shape from thoughts and emotions, the defined lines of modern structures, and the diversity of different lighting conditions seen in my daily life. I use acrylic paints, pastels, crayons, charcoal, and oils in combination to capture effects of light that are found in-between tamed spaces such as parking lots or suburbia and the untamed fringes found in parks, abandoned lots, and by rivers.
Many of my current pieces are inspired by walks in unkempt urban spaces, by Whistler’s Nocturnes, and other artists such as Maurice Cullen and Jaume Morera Galícia. Buildings are featured, and often provide the source of light that is characteristic of the night sky. The paintings explore the urban environment and attempt to remind us of the wealth that nature has to offer and help reconnect us with our local landscape.