Ben Evely

Ben Evely grew up in Banff, Alberta and moved to Vancouver study at Emily Carr University where he graduated with a BFA in Visual Arts and a minor in Community Engagement in 2019. Having spent his childhood dedicated to outdoor recreation such as skiing and mountain biking, Ben began to draw a parallel between engaging the body in sport and the muscle memory learned in the physical gestures of drawing or painting. Ben’s athletic pursuits were constantly halted due to concussions and injuries, allowing the space and time for his artistic development throughout his recovery. Ben’s experience of art as a tool for healing and his formation in the outdoors has influenced him to create artworks that explore the local environmental aesthetic while transforming and distorting common landscapes. Finding a balance between premeditated decisions and unintentional outcomes, Ben’s process of creating art can be based on intentionally sourcing imagery and deciding on compositions or on spontaneous gestures. Recently Ben has begun to explore the relationship between digital and analogue mediums, creating work on a screen and adding tangible and physical components, observing the variations and manipulations of recognizable imagery into an unconstrained and playful artwork. Ben continues to grow his interest in the engagement of art as a tool for healing and recovery.