Ben Pearce: Sentinels (2023)

At first seeming precarious, transitional and in a state of metamorphosis, the stone and rock-like forms of Ben Pearce’s sculptures seem to emerge from the earth itself then rise, twist and turn in an almost ceaseless act of transformation.

Harnessing the expressive languages of the “paradox of contradictory form” what at first seems “monolithic, angular, minimalist and brutalist”1 coalesces into a treatise on the human body. We see and read corten steel redolent with human presence, emotion and dream.

Mixing the monumental with the personal and particular, profound sensations emerge not only of the body’s presence but of mankind’s vulnerability. Parallel conversations start about place and time, the physical and the conceptual, light and space.

The ever-altering negative and positive spaces in and around Pearce’s sculptures introduce different sensations and experiences aggregating profoundly distinguishing characteristics from work to work. Elemental spirits, sentient beings, reality versus inference: Pearce has somehow inverted the dialogue between materiality and figuration to one where the visual mass, fluxing faceted forms, the chocolate palette and soft surface texture become vectors of human emotion whilst also being monolithic guardians, totemic in nature.

Sentinels reveals Ben Pearce to be an important new voice in New Zealand sculpture.

1. Andrew Paul Wood, “Ben Pearce, Future Ancients,” Parlour Projects 2023, https://parlourprojects.com/blogs/news/andrew-paul-wood-ben-pearce-future-ancients