Ben 'Wen-Ben' Alderman

Ben Alderman, also known as Lin Wen-Ben, was born in Taiwan and moved to the United States in adolescence. He was adopted by two men who he now considers to be his fathers. His experience of being adopted at twelve gives him fuel to produce his artworks; the dichotomy of Eastern and Western art culture merges into Ben’s creative process. He was exposed to Asian calligraphy when he was in Taiwan. To this day, he still thinks about the aesthetics of this art form—the human touch and the brushstroke. This influence shows up in his work, which is often visually expressionistic.

His work has been shown in Leon Gallery, Supernova Digital Animation Festival, Lakewood Cultural Center, projection mapping on the Lannie's Clock Tower in Denver, and New American Painting No. 132.

As an artist, Wen-Ben explores ready-made material and culture. He is interested in the materiality of objects and art. A process artist examines the notion of illusion and often combines time-based media with sculptural elements. He uses art to organize his perception of contemporary life and produces works with poetic gestures. The juror of the New American Painting No. 132 Valerie Cassel Oliver states that “Wen-Ben’s featured images are comprised of prompts used in his performances as well as paintings on canvas created out of his performative actions. The mere fact that the young artist understands his practice as inherently and unapologetically painting is evocative of the foundational practices of the late 1960s and early ‘70s, when the search for new forms within established traditions gave prominence to “practice as spectacle.”

Currently, he is in love with experimental animation and he wants to push the boundaries of what kinetic imaging can be. As he makes his project, he considers the materiality of art and object, and his creations are often meta-conceptual.

Synopsis "Take Care" is an experimental animation that explores abandonment anxiety. The film explores fragments of memories by using the process of art-making and cinematic language. A postmodern pop surrealist film uses origami stop motion, CGI, and frame-by-frame animation.

Directed by Ben Alderman AKA Lin Wen-Ben

The first spoken word is written by Keynan Willis; a verse from Close by Optimytical

The rest of the spoken words are written by Ben Alderman

Translated by Zijing Xia, Oleon Lin and Songkai Zhou

The Inner Child performed by Shan Huang

The Olderself performed by Lin Wen-Ben

Animation assistants: Zijing Xia, Shan Huang, and Yiwei Chen

Sound Designers: Yves Florent, Josh Gondrez and Ben Alderman

Composer Yves Florent

Sound Mixer Joe Hirst

Medium:

Mix Media Animation

Synopsis “RIP 9-5” is a desktop animated film depicting a Y2K apocalypse as the result of binary code and monopoly capitalism.

Directed and animated by Ben Alderman AKA Lin Wen-Ben

Illustrations by Harrison Carpenter, Rob Evans, Greg Archuleta, Lea Greenwood, Annie Meyer, and Dayana Ruiz

Sound Design and Music by Josh Gondrez and Shelby Rahe Miles

Medium:

2D + 3D Animation

Animation Capitalism Environment Experimental painting Postmodern

Commission by The Denver Digerati

For the Daniels & Fisher Clocktower, the Denver Digerati commissioned me to create a projection map on the theme of "Regeneration." At first, I did not know what regeneration meant, so I had to research it. While researching for this project, I was in an apartment without AC on a hot day in New York. This made me think about climate change and the ecological disaster we are facing. The piece portrays how some people are feeling about the apocalyptic situation we are in.

Medium:

3-D animation on Clock Tower

Environment

Ben 'Wen-Ben' Alderman

Medium:

Medium:

Medium:

Social

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Royal College of Art