Lyrebird Media - Ben Kettlewell

"My Passion is my Inspiration"
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An Interview with Ben Kettlewell
by Nadja Maril, New England Arts Magazine (1993)

Ben Kettlewell's artistic tendencies appeared to take root early in life. Encouraged to enter a statewide competition at the age of 7, Kettlewell, then a farm boy in rural north Carolina, was given his first set of tempera paints. He won the poster competition, and in his heart, even at that early age, knew he wanted to paint. That feeling has lasted through the years, and today Ben finds himself involved with the creative process in the same fascinating way.

Something inside Ben must have known that day in North Carolina, and Ben realizes now what that was. Ben's source of inspiration comes from within. "I used to think that my surroundings were my inspiration," Ben says. "But my passion is my inspiration, that's what makes me feel alive. When I'm not feeling that passion, nothing external seem to matter."

"I empower whatever I give my attention to, I live in a very beautiful region of the country on the tip of Cape Cod. When I'm not feeling the passion, I look at the ocean, dunes, ponds,and clouds. Everything seems to uneventfully pass by. When I am alive with passion, I want to express it, to show love and appreciation for the life I live. My work expresses that unique inner spirit."

That spirit is reflected through Ben's experiences into his crisp, bold painting technique. When asked about his work, he gave the following reply. "I feel fortunate that the work I produce not only reflects so much of who I am, and what I am about, but also that it touches on the same feelings in so many other people."

Back in the 1960s when Ben began art school at Maryland Institute, he was more of a realist. "I was really obsessed with making my paintings look real," he says of his former work, until one day he realized "there's really not a lot of soul in there." As he stood with his easel outside the old B&O Railroad station, he had a revelation. "I realized that what I was going for was the silhouette of the train against the station."

Shapes and light would inform his subsequent work. And while forms inspire his paintings, a quality of mood infuses them with something more complex. Ben likes looking beyond windows, through tunnels, between buildings, across bridges. His eyes discard the surface, the minutia of realism, and instead explore form, light, gesture, and mood. The imposing silhouette of the Good Year blimp, against a surreal cobalt blue sky, or the commanding crosses of telephone poles stitching together a bruised bizarre Cape Cod afternoon.

Painting with acrylic on canvas, or mixed media on wood, Kettlewell transforms what he sees into haunting abstractions that express intensity of mood, and a somber yet humorous revelatory vision. Human figures appear in lots of Kettlewell's work. Like his landscapes, these figures offer an unusual Bauhaus influenced perspective. The characters portrayed, brilliantly contrast with the quietude of the landscapes, and the colors too, are heightened.

Discovering the idiosyncratic palettes of earlier Provincetown/New York artists, such as Hoffman, Warhol, Gross, and Jim Forsberg, he reaffirmed his commitment to bolder pigments.

As one contemplates Kettlewell's work in the context of the hybridizing process that was going on here on the Cape, it seems amazingly self-sufficient and fully realized. The effects he achieves with color and translucency, his complex, multidimensional spaces, his ability to make palpable the fantastic, are joined in an art that seductively leads the viewer into imaginary worlds.

Unmindful of the heroics that began to change American art in the late 1940's, he continues this tradition, to pursue his own visionary path.

In 1971, he reiterated "The only thing to keep the spirit is the act of doing, to paint, and to dream in the paint."