Artist Benjamin Styer

Benjamin Styer has participated in at least one art fair and two group exhibitions during the last decade, including Sperone Westwater Gallery in New York City.

The artist’s paintings combine medieval marginalia, folk textile, and commercial ephemera from throughout history while alluding to familiar art historical elements. His absorbent approach softens calcified narratives while giving his works intuitive yet timeless qualities.

Early Life and Education

Benjamin Styer was born in 1989 and became part of the Young British Artists movement during the 1990s, which is commonly referred to as YBAs (Young British Artists). He studied at Goldsmith College and the Royal College of Art; his works draw upon medieval marginalia, folk textile and commercial ephemera for inspiration; these visual accumulations combine spiritual translation into compositions which conjure intuitive yet timeless qualities often found in mythologies or legends.

He has also demonstrated a keen interest in normalizing disability by creating an adaptive jingle dress for his daughter Bella who has nonverbal cerebral palsy with epilepsy, receiving positive responses online from various individuals.

His paintings venture into the fantastical, recalling medieval revivalism and gothic references. Works such as Isle of B and Sleepwalking Stickerbook refer to historical esoterica and hauntological illuminations.

Professional Career

Benjamin Styer is a self-taught painter who draws his inspiration from dreams, visions, and memories fragments. His works combine medieval manuscript margins, folk textile, commercial ephemera, surrealist vignettes and surrealist images into surrealist compositions which evoke mythologies and legends, lost music memories or half remembered books – while creating compositions which echo these feelings intuitively and timeless qualities of mythologies and legends.

Styer’s art is inspired by art from the 1990s, particularly from YBAs (Young British Artists), an loose affiliation of practitioners known as Young British Artists who were patronized by super collector Charles Saatchi and featured artists like Damien Hirst, Chris Ofili, Tracey Emin Sarah Lucas Marc Quinn among others. Styer’s pieces draw from this inspiration with vibrant hues and multilayered compositions emphasizing geometric and abstract forms in intricate compositions that highlight geometric and abstract relationships.

Achievement and Honors

Benjamin Styer has displayed his works at galleries and museums across the globe, earning several prestigious accolades such as the Taft Award for Distinguished Faculty Achievement in 1996 and A. James Clark Scholarship for Mathematical Research.

Styer’s paintings combine medieval marginalia, folk textile and commercial ephemera to produce compositions which evoke the intuitive and timeless quality of mythologies and legends. His practice serves both as visual accumulator and spiritual translator – connecting mind with unconscious.

Styer was inspired by a group of artists known as YBAs – or Young British Artists – during his formative years, such as Damien Hirst and other well-known figures in contemporary art.

Personal Life

Brian Bean of West Virginia State Police’s Eastern Panhandle Drug and Violent Crime Task Force reported that Styer had admitted bringing lighters and suboxone into jail to keep inmates supplied, and identified sources from whom he received it. Court documents indicate he was being paid $1800 weekly from inmates in violation of his official duty as well as rules within jail walls.

Benjamin Styer’s paintings combine medieval marginalia, folk textile, commercial ephemera and surrealist vignettes into compositions that conjure the timeless quality of mythologies and legends. His pieces tap into an unconscious to evoke feelings such as lost music, thoughts of thoughts or the memories from half-remembered books.