Meeting in Painting

“A painting is not a window, it is a meeting point” says Ben Simon.
The figures populating Simon’s paintings are made to be looked at, but are not passive. They stare back and smile creating a relationship with the viewer. The figures are stretched into the rigid boundaries of the rectangular canvas format. His painted people have a strangeness to them, though they depict scenes that seem pretty ordinary. At times the painterly style is grotesque and caricature like, other times closer to reality. The figures are wide-eyed, but the gaze opaque, glazed, reminding us that the painting is an illusion. Simon creates relationships between the characters in his works, between them and the viewers, and of course between him and all of these. Sometimes for years, layers and layers of additions and corrections are piled on the painting’s surface, culminating at the point of ripeness and maturity of the character.