Ben Stephenson (London)

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Ben Stephenson is a British artist who explores the notions and misconceptions of the exotic. For this exhibition he embodies the spirit of Henri Rousseau, a French avant-garde artist and often considered an outsider of France from more than 100 years ago, who painted jungle scenes and wild animals supposedly from Mexico although he had never actually visited it.

By investigating the role of the stranger and its relationship to the sense of otherness and the unknown, Stephenson tries to honestly question his own role in this and how Rousseau could have actually encountered such an experience. Explore Zapotec culture, mythology, natural materials such as adobe, and pigments such as indigo and cochineal. Relics, artifacts and jungle scenes are intertwined in a domestic setting to create an immersive 'Henri's Holiday' experience.

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