“How much monster, Duke’s Paintings ask us, are we willing to feel in ourselves, to accept, to affirm? What are the limits to which our egos restrict us, and what attractions and sensations liberate us from the cage of self? What aspirations and endeavors, Ben Duke’s paintings keep asking, lead beyond all compromises and reveal to us, finally what a body can think and do and feel.”

This from Brian Kubarycz’s introductory essay to the catalogue entitled: Benjamin Duke 2001-2010: Ten years of Work with essays by Brian Kubarycz, and Su YuAnn, published by Garden City Publishing. Benjamin Duke received his Master of Fine Arts at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Hoffberger School of Painting in 2006. He has been teaching painting and drawing at Michigan State University since 2006 and has had numerous Solo, and Group shows at the national and international level including Solo exhibitions at Ann Nathan Gallery in Chicago, the Delaware Center for Contemporary Art, “Weak Painting Group,” exhibitions at The Kuandu Museum of Fine Art in Taipei and Da Xiang Art Space in Taichung City, Taiwan. Duke has also been awarded international residencies at Bamboo Curtain Studios, The Kuandu Museum of Fine Art at Taipei National University of the Arts, and the Vermont Studio Center. Duke says this about his own work:

“In my paintings I ask myself “Is this the way the world is?’ I reshape and retool my painting experience to answer that question. But while the question begins with the world, it ends with the work itself: “Is this the way the world is in this work?”
The search is for the world in painting and painting in the world (painting worlds/ paintings world). Am I in the world or is the world in me? I allude to my life, to writers works, to imagery and it is my hope that this record of allusion conjures and creates the same. I am referring to text, theory, idea but I am also finding myself already there, looking out to see in.”