Benon Lutaaya
Artist statement
While concepts of social adversity, identity, and other vagaries of life are explored, the notion of yearning translates resoundingly into hope, so true of his current outlook on life.
Drawing on his autobiographical life experiences as inspiration, his work reflects our day to day experiences and culture as he pursues and deepens his fascination with technique.
The waste paper material in his work communicates the vulnerability of human life. And through his collage techniques, he aims to comment on and raise many fundamental questions about the complexity of human conditions today.
His work offers some approach of his own personal space and identity in the world and how the latter has been formed, shaped and manipulated, sometimes torn, sometimes glued as intensely chiseled by his creative process. His technique reveals layers of constant manipulation, exploration and approximations in the application of the medium he opts to use to construct his forms. These layers are purposefully interspersed with elements of intervention and disturbance which acts as a blur to fixed ideas and questions the way identity gets constructed.
Combining both abstract and realistic elements, benon manipulates his medium to allow for infinite searching, reconfiguration, and rediscovery – releasing energy which imbues his work with rawness and simplicity. He’s competent working with either acrylics, collage, or mixed media.
He admits to first muddle through a whole lot of disheartening dead ends and near misses prior to submit his offering.
Benon’s work is included in a number of local and international collections of significance. (text website artist)