Ben Stanford is a figurative painter based in Denver, Colorado. His process begins with a blend of free-associative drawing, photography, and digital manipulation, which allows him to distort, reconfigure, and build images intuitively before committing them to paint. This hybrid approach creates a scaffold on which subconscious imagery and archetypal symbols can slowly emerge from atmospheric voids—stripped of narrative context.

Throughout the course of a painting, he embraces uncertainty—allowing intuition and accident to play an equal role in the painting’s evolution. The result is imagery that is deliberate, yet imbued with a strategic ambiguity that redirects away from literal interpretations. In all of his work, he seeks to externalize the inner terrain—to create visual arenas where the body becomes a vessel for the unseen, where emotional resonance takes precedence over narrative clarity, and where viewers might encounter a fragment of themselves reflected back in unfamiliar light.

While experimentation is core to his practice, Ben is deeply committed to the lineage of classical painting, drawing inspiration from time-honored techniques. These historical practices serve not merely as aesthetic choices, but as philosophical anchors. For him, tradition offers structure—a self-imposed set of limitations within which craftsmanship is not merely nostalgic but generative, opening up a dialogue between past and present.