About Ben

Baltimore City

Ben Piwowar is a Baltimore-based artist whose practice combines painting, drawing, and site-resposive installation. His work uses abstraction and material play to reflect on fragility, adaptation, and regeneration.

He received an MFA in studio art from the University of Connecticut in 2011 and holds undergraduate degrees in painting and literature from the University of Maryland. Notable exhibitions include solo shows at School 33 Art Center in Baltimore and VisArts in Rockville (MD… more

Painting 2016-2019

Selection from a body of work that began in 2014, when I resumed painting after several years of working almost exclusively in sculptural installation.

  • More Animal
    More Animal

    Oil on wood panel, 10 in. x 10 in.

  • your ancient see through ways
    your ancient see through ways
    oil on panel, 10 in. x 10 in.
  • I'm here for the interview
    I'm here for the interview

    oil on panel, 12 in. x 12 in.

  • Something has inflated me
    Something has inflated me
    oil on panel, 10 in. x 10 in.
  • Mouthfeel
    Mouthfeel
    oil on panel, 10 in. x 10 in.
  • Our New Singer
    Our New Singer
    Oil on panel, 10 in. x 8 in.
  • Monopod
    Monopod
    Oil on panel. 12 in. x 12 in.
  • Blinks
    Blinks

    Oil on panel, 10 in. x 8 in.

  • singing what it practiced its whole life
    singing what it practiced its whole life

    Oil on panel, 16 in. x 16 in., 2015

  • First Proof
    First Proof

    Oil on canvas, 20 in. x 16 in.

Paintings 2014-2016

Paintings completed 2014-2016.

  • Blinks
    Blinks

    Oil on panel, 10 in. x 8 in.

  • First Proof
    First Proof

    Oil on canvas, 20 in. x 16 in.

  • Dilemma Rodeo
    Dilemma Rodeo
    oil on panel, 10 in. x 10 in.
  • singing what it practiced its whole life
    singing what it practiced its whole life

    Oil on panel, 16 in. x 16 in., 2015

  • Hoda
    Hoda
    oil on canvas, 10 in. x 10 in.
  • Mind of Winter
    Mind of Winter
    oil on panel, 18 in. x 18 in.
  • Pink's Fine
    Pink's Fine
    oil on panel, 10 in. x 10 in.

Sculpture/ Installation, 2017 (2)

Room made of taken away (nesting studies) is an installation that was made for Birdland and the Anthropocene, a group exhibition organized around the theme of extinction at the Peale Center in Baltimore, curated by Lynne Parks.

This installation expands on my previous "Nesting Studies" (represented below). For this ongoing body of work, I frame my intuitive and playful process in the context of the survival strategies of migrating bird populations as they contend with, and adapt to, climate change and inhospitable urban environments.

(Title borrowed from "God of Rooms" by Jean Valentine)

The second work represented here is that giant urge to hover, an installation completed for the 2017 Trawick Prize exhibition.

  • room made of taken-away (nesting studies)
    room made of taken-away (nesting studies)
  • room made of taken-away (nesting studies)
    room made of taken-away (nesting studies)
  • room made of taken-away (nesting studies)
    room made of taken-away (nesting studies)
  • room made of taken-away (nesting studies)
    room made of taken-away (nesting studies)
  • room made of taken-away (nesting studies)
    room made of taken-away (nesting studies)
  • that giant urge to hover
    that giant urge to hover
  • that giant urge to hover
    that giant urge to hover
  • that giant urge to hover
    that giant urge to hover
  • that giant urge to hover
    that giant urge to hover
  • that giant urge to hover
    that giant urge to hover

Sculpture/Installation, 2017 (1)

This project highlights work I made  at the Vermont Studio Center residency in November 2017. Within the space of this studio, I completed two site-responsive pieces (no trap/no treasure and Agnes Gin Nap) alongside a series of paintings and works on paper.

  • no trap/no treasure
    no trap/no treasure
    Detail view. Tinted cast hydrocal with embedded copper piece, graphite drawing, floor painting. 2017.
  • no trap/no treasure
    no trap/no treasure
    Installation with salvaged wood and metal, cast hydrocal objects,drawings,on-site painting. Vermont Studio Center, 2017.
  • no trap/no treasure
    no trap/no treasure
    Detail view. Wood, drawing, thread, paint.
  • no trap/no treasure
    no trap/no treasure
    Detail view. Drawing impaled on metal-tipped wood dowel inserted into pillar. 2017.
  • no trap/no treasure
    no trap/no treasure
    Partial view of installation, with salvaged wood and metal, cast hydrocal objects,drawings,on-site painting.
  • no trap/no treasure
    no trap/no treasure
    Detail view. Tinted hydrocal with embedded steel, drawing fragments, floor painting.
  • no trap/no treasure
    no trap/no treasure
    Alternate installation view. The character of this installation changed depending on the viewer's position and perception of relative scale. In this image it nearly dissolves into a delicatel spatial drawing, while from other perspectives it becomes more animated, populated by more assertive sculptural statements and applied color.
  • Agnes Gin Nap
    Agnes Gin Nap
    Tinted hydrocal object with nail, inked packing envelope fragment, black palm cuttings, two small drawings, painting on panel, window. 2017.
  • Agnes Gin Nap (detail)
    Agnes Gin Nap (detail)
    Detail view of Agnes Gin Nap installation. Tinted hydrocal object with nail, inked packing envelope fragment, black palm cuttings, two small drawings, painting on panel, window. 2017.
  • installation view of paintings completed at Vermont Studio Center
    installation view of paintings completed at Vermont Studio Center
    Arrangement of paintings and drawings that were made and shown in the same space as "no trap/no treasure" and "Agnes Gin Nap" installations.

Paper Works

I'm continually generating small works on paper as I move between painting and installation projects. My 2019 solo exhibition, soft obstacle, was originally conceived as a way to stage these works in a way that reflected my experience of them in the studio: less as autonomous visual statements, more as fugitive things that flicker between image and materiality, whose meaning and function shift through accretion and interrelation.

  • untitled (soft obstacle series)
    untitled (soft obstacle series)

    Graphite and flashe on paper, cut paper with crayon, nails. 

    9 in. x 5 in. x .75 in.

  • shelter in place
    shelter in place

    Reversed drawing with ink stain, metallic contact paper, mismatched nails. 4.5 in. x 3.5 in. x .75 in. (composite view)

  • untitled (soft obstacle series)
    untitled (soft obstacle series)

    Gouache and graphite wash on paper, 2018. 5.5 in x 4.25 in.

  • untitled (soft obstacle series)
    untitled (soft obstacle series)

    Gouache on colored paper, 2018. 4 in. x 5.5 in.

  • untitled (soft obstacle series)
    untitled (soft obstacle series)

    Graphite and gouache on cut paper, 2017. 6 in. x 5.5 in.

  • untitled (soft obstacle series)
    untitled (soft obstacle series)

    graphite, gouache, and colored pencil on shaped paper, 4 in. x 5 in.

  • untitled (soft obstacle series)
    untitled (soft obstacle series)

    Graphite and paint on cut/shaped paper, 2018. 6.75 in. x 5.75 in.

  • untitled (soft obstacle series)
    untitled (soft obstacle series)

    Gouache on paper, 2018. 4 in. x 3 in.

  • untitled (soft obstacle series)
    untitled (soft obstacle series)

    Gouache on shaped paper, 2018. 4 in. x 3 in.

Against Weather (2016)

Solo exhibition at VisArts Rockville (Common Ground Gallery), winter 2016. For this exhibition I created a temporary installation encompassing the entire gallery space. I populated the room with objects, drawings, and sculptural gestures over a period of roughly three weeks. The piece was improvised in the gallery with minimal preparation in my home studio, using a wide range of construction detritus collected over the past three years.

Total dimensions of installation: 10 ft. (h) x 13 ft. (w) x 16 ft. (h)
  • Against Weather
    Against Weather
    Partial view of Against Weather, a solo project that encompassed the entire space of the Common Ground Gallery in VisArts at Rockville. The entire installation was improvised on site over a three-week period using salvaged materials.
  • Against Weather
    Against Weather
  • Against Weather
    Against Weather
  • Against Weather
    Against Weather
  • Against Weather
    Against Weather
  • Against Weather
    Against Weather
  • Against Weather
    Against Weather
  • Against Weather
    Against Weather
  • Dear Lightning
    Dear Lightning
    Sofa leg, paint, custom shelf. 2016. Standalone piece embedded in the Against Weather installation.
  • what silence won't sit still
    what silence won't sit still
    Salvaged wood, drawing fragments, broken plastic tray, colored foil. 2016. Standalone piece embedded in Against Weather installation.

Sculpture/Installation 2014-2015

Selected works completed in 2014 and 2015.


My artistic practice is a hybrid of drawing, object manipulation, and site-responsive construction. Through these overlapping activities I engage with a variety of salvaged materials. I choose to work with things that are marked or shaped by prior use—contractors’ trash, unfinished drawings, detritus found on walks, leavings of other people’s projects. These materials are minimally modified in the studio before they are brought to the exhibition space, where relationships between fragmentary components are developed on-site through intuitive arrangement and re-orientation.

The objects in my installations function like displaced characters or invasive organisms learning to survive in new territory; in negotiating both their individual presences and a cumulative identity, they labor to establish a kind of microclimate within the gallery. This is both a meditation on fragility and a material meditation on the human capacity to make use and make do: the will to adapt to uncertain conditions and the resourcefulness to persist with what is on hand.

  • Countertenor
    Countertenor
    Site-specific wall painting with line drawing, painted wood blocks, fabric, tape. 16 in. x 16 in. x 4 in.
  • Skitter Index
    Skitter Index
    Objects, paint, drawing. 2015.
  • Skitter Index
    Skitter Index
    Detail view
  • Skitter Index (detail)
    Skitter Index (detail)
    Objects, paint, drawing. Detail view.
  • C.S.M.
    C.S.M.
    Wood molding fragment, paint, graphite, wall painting. 2015. This is a stand-alone piece embedded in the Skitter Index installation.
  • Nesting Studies #3 (corner, alarm)
    Nesting Studies #3 (corner, alarm)
    Wood, cable, tape, fabric, nails, paint. 2015.
  • Nesting Studies (#6)
    Nesting Studies (#6)
    Paint, modified wire cage. Installed in doorway of gallery fire exit.
  • Nesting Studies #2
    Nesting Studies #2
    Drawing fragments, wood, wall painting, various other materials. 2015.
  • Funny Once
    Funny Once
    Cardboard from clementine box w/plastic mesh remnant, wall drawing 2014
  • Custom Climate
    Custom Climate
    Objects, paint, drawing 2014

Indoor Verbs

Indoor Verbs is a gathering of objects and wall drawings, originally created for the 2013 Sondheim Semi-Finalist Exhibition. While certain individual components were prepared ahead of time, the installation as a whole was improvised over a two-day installation period using modified construction materials, furniture fragments, and drawings from my studio. A few elements foraged from the exhibition space also found their way into the finished work.

  • Indoor Verbs
    Indoor Verbs
  • Indoor Verbs
    Indoor Verbs
  • Indoor Verbs
    Indoor Verbs
  • Indoor Verbs
    Indoor Verbs
  • Indoor Verbs
    Indoor Verbs
  • Indoor Verbs
    Indoor Verbs
  • Indoor Verbs
    Indoor Verbs
  • Indoor Verbs
    Indoor Verbs

Sculpture/Installation 2010-2011

Earlier installation and sculpture. This body of work marks the beginning of my exploration of  architectural space using strategies adapted from my painting practice. Most of the work pictured here was created for my MFA thesis exhibition at the University of Connecticut.
  • It Is What It Sounds Like
    It Is What It Sounds Like
    Watercolor on paper, laminate, nails, clothespins, fabric
  • Against Weather
    Against Weather
    Lumber, fabric, paint, rope, studio detritus, 2011. This installation is something between an (anti-functional) improvised shelter and a collaged spatial drawing. Like much of my 3-D work, Against Weather's unstable and provisional appearance is a consequence of its site-responsive development. [*note: This piece is entirely distinct from my 2016 project also titled Against Weather, although it is an important precursor. Sort of like a great-uncle who happens to have the exact same name.]
  • Against Weather (detail)
    Against Weather (detail)
    Lumber, fabric, paint, rope, studio detritus
    2011 Detail view
  • No Argument
    No Argument
    Wood, fake fur, canvas
  • You'll do
    You'll do
    Wood, paint, yarn
    2011
  • BR
    BR
    Lumber, paint, found furniture element
  • Med. Joy
    Med. Joy
    Painted plywood, homasote, tape, insulation foam, furniture fragment, carpet
  • Med. Joy
    Med. Joy
    Painted plywood, homasote, tape, insulation foam, furniture fragment, carpet
  • Caller
    Caller
    Wood, paint, wall drawing
    2011
  • Caller
    Caller
    Wood, paint, wall drawing
    detail view
    2011