Discouraged by the lack of attention to teaching the techniques and disciplines of figurative painting in Art Schools, Ben Unsworth decided to work on his own. John Hurt and Clody Norton became his patrons and this enabled Ben to spend crucial years in Africa and Ireland developing his painting.
Ben has always been fascinated by the natural world, once spending a year painting in a remote rainforest under tarpaulins.
Ben Unsworth has shown with Portal Painters since 2002 and has had 3 one man shows, he exhibits with them at the major London Art Fairs : The London Art Fair in January, The Affordable Art Fair in Battersea and at The British Art Fair at The Saatchi Gallery in September.
‘Ben’s paintings are secret places, shadowed and spellbound. The natural world is lovingly described and embellished, but parallel to this ordering of things is a sense of strangeness and otherness. A feeling for the mysteries of time and place. A tap on the shoulder.’ (Peter Unsworth)
