Through his use of local plant life and organic reference material, Ben Wolf Noam physically engages with the specific locations in which he works, embedding imprints of his surroundings into his artwork.
Read MoreIn Empire of Light (2022), Noam's first solo exhibition at The Pit in Palm Springs, Noam takes the surrounding desert as his inspiration. Employing a highly detailed application of oil paint, his photorealistic artworks depict trees, cacti, and rock formations within the outlines of the Joshua Tree, which forms a recurring theme throughout the exhibition, even manifesting in a bristling cast aluminium sculpture. Taking its name from René Magritte's iconic 'L'Empire des lumières' series, the exhibition continues Magritte's quest to depict day and night in a single frame with 'both refined precision and larger swathes of gestural brilliance,' as per Rory Mitchell for Ocula Advisory.
While his depictions of Yucca palms and rock-strewn landscapes pay homage to the arid terrain of Southern California, Noam's signature 'foliage paintings' originated on the East Coast in 2012, when he transferred vines climbing the walls of his Brooklyn home onto canvas to signify the constant battle between plant life and architecture. For subsequent works, like LA River Painting (2015), Noam collected foliage from the Los Angeles River—a beleaguered ecosystem famously stunted by concrete—layering his cuttings onto canvases sprayed with gradients to create delicate composite images.
For 12 Months Geodesic Dome (2015), Noam created a 12-panel painting on canvas stretched over a geodesic dome, each panel representing one month in a year. In Digital Expressionism (2013), a group exhibition featuring his work at The Suzanne Geiss Company in New York, Noam transformed the gallery into a temple for the digital age with a series of large-scale, painted columns, translating the emerging vocabularies of digital image production into analogue painting and sculpture.
