Passione's paintings benefit from a vitality born from the means of their finding: handmade, felt, visual, and free from singular meaning.
About the Artist
Benjamin Passione describes his paintings as "both under and overworked" and his description is apt. His paintings run the gamut between distilled clarity with restraint and a frenetic cacophony of colors, textures, and marks. The painted "rollercoasters" of visual moments provide a journey with dynamic slippages which are a tonic for the times of mandated utility. Passione's process of lengthy interaction, recalibration, and reorientation of his paintings cultivates works that could not be pre-imagined but are filled with space for the imagination to roam. Passione's paintings benefit from a vitality born from the means of their finding: handmade, felt, visual, and free from singular meaning.
Less interested in the literal, the artist stretches paint-- its chromatic possibilities, its tactile qualities-- to its limits. His paintings show striving. He finds uncharted territory in the well-trodden realm of the rectangle as his paint jumps, bounces, saturates, overlaps, undercuts, and skips across the surfaces of his paintings. His marks are free, leaving room for associations and straining for nonverbal possibilities. Navigating the chaos of a painting and uncovering its inherent structure allows viewers to follow Passione's lead as they are beckoned to both find and lose themselves in his work. It is a romantic way of painting. It is a way of seeing and doing where Passione presents new worlds with their own rules; nonverbal in complexity and nuance.
Benjamin Passione lives and works in Philadelphia. He graduated from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts' esteemed certificate program in 2008. His work is represented by Gross McCleaf Gallery in Philadelphia.
Resume
EDUCATION
2009 4yr Certificate, Painting, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2022 Improvisations - Gross McCleaf Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2019 All the Sauce - Gross McCleaf Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2019 Works on Paper - Frameworks Studio & Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2021 A Breath of Fresh Air- Cerulean Arts Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2020 Fully Saturated - Woodmere Art Museum
2020 Smallworks Annual Show - Frameworks Studio & Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2019 All the Sauce - Gross McCleaf Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2019 Works on Paper - Frameworks Studio & Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2018 Annual Juried Exhibition - Perkins Center for the Arts, Moorestown, NJ
2018 Summer Group Show - Gross McCleaf Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2017 Arthur B. Carles and His Expanding Circle - Woodmere Art Museum
2017 Solid and Real Things - Gross McCleaf Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2016 Non Linear - Gross McCleaf Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2015 The More The Merrier - Cerulean Arts Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2014 Lilies, Figs and Folly: Contemporary Still Life Paintings & Works on Paper - Cerulean Arts Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2014 Before, Again - Gross McCleaf Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2013 Sampler: Small Works by 30 Artists - Cerulean Arts Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2012 Just In: Recent Acquisitions in the Collection of Woodmere Art Museum - Woodmere Art Museum
2012 The Acorn Club Exhibition - Acorn Club, Philadelphia ,PA
2012 The Drawing Show - Philadelphia Sketch Club, Philadelphia, PA
2012 Pushing Paint - Gross McCleaf Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2012 New Moderns - Gross McCleaf Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2011 PAINT - The Main Line Art Center, Haverford, PA
2011 POST, Open Studios at Spring Garden Street, Philadelphia, PA
2011 Flirting with Abstraction - The Woodmere Art Museum
2011 Solo Exhibition - Four Seasons Hotel and Restaurant, Philadelphia, PA
2011 112th Fellowship Exhibition - Artist House, Philadelphia, PA
2011 PA Summer Solstice - Citibank & Kimmel Center, Philadelphia, PA
2010 The Philadelphia Salon - The Main Line Art center, Haverford, PA
2010 Absolutely Abstract - The Philadelphia Sketch Club, Philadelphia, PA
2010 Biennial Art Show - Penn Charter School, Philadelphia, PA
2009 Absolutely Abstract - Philadelphia Sketch Club, Philadelphia, PA
2009 Fellowship of PAFA - Artist House, Philadelphia, PA
2009 ASE Selections Exhibition - Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
2008 ASE Selections Exhibition - Gallery 128 Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
2008 Gallery of Contemporary Art - Hopkins House, Haddon, NJ
2008 Group Exhibition - Delaware County Community College, Media, PA
AWARDS
2018 First Place, Annual Juried Exhibition - Perkins Center for the Arts, Moorestown, NJ
2010 Second prize, Absolutely Abstract - Philadelphia Sketch Club, Philadelphia, PA
2009 Award of Excellence, The Fellowship of PAFA
First prize, Absolutely Abstract, Philadelphia Sketch Club
Louis S Ware Travel Scholarship
2008 Michael G. Capuzzi Memorial Endowment
Lucille Sorgenti Scholarship
Benjamin Lanard Memorial Award
Violet DeMazia Memorial Scholarship
Elizabeth Arrasmith Memorial Scholarship
Mindel Caplan Klienbard Award
PUBLICATIONS / FILM
2022 “Family of Artists, Ben Passione, Mickayel Thurin, and the Legendary Maurice,” Artists in the Time of the Pandemic, John Thorton
2021 Art Sync: The Baobab Tree, Elizabeth Johnson
2017 “Small Changes Adding Up, the Art of Ben Passione”, John Thorton
2013 Just In: Recent Acquisitions in the Collection of Woodmere Art Museum, Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia PA
2010 Flirting with Abstraction, by Bill Scott, Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, PA