BEN TOLMAN
Whether intentional or not, the highly detailed drawings of Washington DC-based artist, Ben Tolman, portrays architecture as a competition of space. Structures climb atop one another like totem poles, stacked like Jenga blocks. Sometimes stressed and partly collapsed. Its an exaggeration of modern American cities, just looking out my kitchen window I see the diverse rooftops jumbled together in the distance, new high-rises behind a low-income housing project building, across the street from a fenced in community of affordable row houses, with old school tenement buildings peeking over trees further in the backdrop, a once stately courthouse faintly present as well, still abandoned, despite the removal of graffiti and possible squatters.
By bringing all the buildings together into a tight wrestling hold, what Ben captures most for me, is this stubborn will to fill more space. Pushing in structure after structure with little consideration for the setting, just the simple determination of including more. Ben highlights the absurdity of this incessant addition. He’s also a patient artist working on pieces for months at a time, telling the intricate story of each mega-structure. He doesn’t judge or politicize his work either, it’s enough to simply document. To show you how it all looks when pressed together—Making us perhaps think about the buildings we see in real life, at a parallel, increasingly too close for comfort.
To see more of Ben’s work, check out his website.
