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Melding Heavy Metal and Fine Art with @BenVenom

“I’m interested in juxtaposing traditional handmade crafts with extreme elements found on the fringes of society,” Ben Venom (@benvenom) writes in his artist statement. In repurposing discarded denim and old heavy metal t-shirts into quilts of painfully exacting detail, Venom questions and challenges his audience’s conception of fine art.

“My current body of work is directly inspired from the Gees Bend quilt exhibition I saw at the de Young Museum (@deyoungmuseum) in 2006,” says Ben. “I was blown away by the attention to design, craft, and handiwork by women from a very rural region in the American South not to far from where I grew up. They did not have a lot of materials at their disposal and would use recycled denim jeans, blankets, and fabric scrapes to construct some really amazing work.”

Ben cultivates an even deeper appreciation for his craft through Instagram by bringing people into his studio and documenting his process. “For me Instagram operates as a timeline that visually displays the progression of my art and life. I tend to post works in progress and occasionally finished pieces to give the viewer an idea of how the work has progressed.”

Join Ben Venom in his studio as he continues to explore the intersection between heavy metal and fiber arts by following him on Instagram, @benvenom.