Artist Statement
Ben Alderman, aka 林文彬 (Lin Wen-Ben), is an interdisciplinary artist who explores ready-made materials, cultural imagery, and philosophical concepts through the process of experimental animation and mark making. He recontextualizes familiar objects and symbols with a handmade quality, staging them as poetic gestures and expressions in installation space. In this approach, viewers are invited to see beyond the surface, revealing new layers of perception and understanding and offering an alternative perspective on our shared reality.
Recently, Wen-Ben has explored obsolete and certain technology in order to create an interactive installation with experimental animation. To explore the human relationship with technology, he works with digital hardware that functions as gallery objects. Within these systems, he draws on digital aesthetics, such as glitches and OS icons, re-representing them through painterly expression. This direction reflects his broader practice, where animation and interdisciplinary methods serve as tools for examining the evolving relationships within contemporary culture.
Bio
Ben Alderman (林文彬, Lin Wen-Ben) is an American interdisciplinary artist, born in Taichung and adopted due to the 921 earthquake of 1999. Working through experimental animation and mark making, he recontextualises familiar objects, cultural imagery, and philosophical concepts, staging them as poetic gestures in installation space. Recently, he has been working with obsolete technology and digital hardware as gallery objects, drawing on digital aesthetics such as glitches and OS icons and re-representing them through painterly expression.
He holds an M.A. in Experimental Animation from the Royal College of Art and a B.F.A. in Fine Art from the Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design. His work has screened at BAFTA-qualifying festivals including the London Short Film Festival and Bolton Film Festival, appeared in New American Paintings #132, and been commissioned for public art in Denver. In 2025 he received an Immersive Arts grant to develop Hyperspace 403, a screen-based interactive installation.