Originally from Spain, Beñat Olaberria is a London based artist graduated from City and Guilds from London Art School with an MA in Fine Art. With a non impressionistic, non narrative and non reductive approach to making, Beñat 's practice explores the unknown territories of his mind, he is interested in constructing abstract pieces as a reaction to his first nervous, unplanned and impulsive mark-making until the desired balance is achieved through his visual logic and personal language.
How did you get into art?
I was always interested in art but as a young person I did not get the chance to study fine arts at university and I graduated in Marketing and Business Administration. But nine years ago, I decided to give myself a chance and moved to the UK to study fine arts and finally pursue my passion.
How would you describe your style? What makes your work special?
Monochromatic, unplanned and very intuitive. I develop my work with a non-representational, non-reductive and non-descriptive approach. I do not intend to explain or depict anything in particular other than my own presence in the studio at the moment of making. I refuse representation and fight against any fixed visual explanation.
I could describe my art as a product of my two opposite ways of being. I am a very impulsive person, but on the other hand I can also be a control freak. As a result, I could say that my work is a product of gestural and impulsive mark-making combined with more meditated shapes and final details until the piece meets my visual logic.
How do you go about developing your work?
I never plan my pieces, I have no clear idea where the work is going to take me, so I allow myself to get lost in the process of making. I often describe my process as going for a walk, where I do not know where my final destination is going to be. I am interested in the recording of the process of making more than in the process itself, where all the mistakes, accidents and decisions involved in the making of the painting need to be visible in the final piece.
Who or what influences you?
I get influenced by everything and everyone around me. From everyday experiences like conversations, books, cooking, to different artistic disciplines like music, cinema, design, art and architecture.
Make us curious. What is planned next?
I have a few exhibitions coming up in the following months, but I have been offered a new exhibition in London where for the first time I will be exhibiting 3D works exclusively and I am very excited about it. It will be a small exhibition but the idea of developing sculptures is something I have always been interested in and never had the chance to do it properly until now.
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