Manpower

A central work of Ben Ben-Ron´s many series of paintings created in different styles, is a large scale semi-realistic canvas, which traps within it a dominant theme linking his works: through the heavy, wild underbrush there is a glimpse of a mysterious human event – the actual existence of which is doubtful – taking place deep in the shadowy depths of sublime nature.
Ben-Ron deals with humankind´s attempts to mark the borders of control, he freezes the moment before it dissipates and is swallowed up by some larger entity. A kind of modern-day Mt. Sinai swollen with contradictions: human technology in the form of a red jeep contains within it a sexual act – a sort of male ability to hold a female figure within it, a violent scene takes place between two ragwort bushes, and in the distance there are tree trunks crowded and threatening like the Asmargard forest of awe and loss – all these create an atmosphere that is not only mysterious, but also frightening and ridiculous. The combination of details and acts that illogical and inexplicable in the context they are shown, create a grotesque mood of an absurd world.
Despite the eclecticism that defines them, all the works discuss the borderline between control and its loss: in the small black and red acrylic paintings Ben-Ron freezes the quiet before the storm/destruction/failure, placing them like frames in a promo announcing what is to come. The act dramatizes the artist´s omnipotent fantasy of control (in paintings as well as in reality), together with the release from fantasy and the attempt to control, this time in the illusion he himself has created.
The series of abstracts also touches on this subject: it shows a panoramic look at controlling caprices. The discussion of border and its breach exists in the control of the color and material, the desire to break out of the frame of the painting.
The debate on the border of control attains an additional aspect in the general context of the exhibition, the male ability or virility in the face of its human fragility and limitations: the noticeable abundance in the mass of works and techniques strengthens the sense of emptiness and loneliness reflected un them as a sort of blend of death force and life force, a mix of restraint and disintegration in a single moment of suspension.
Ben-Ron marks the borders of form, he knows that beneath the surface, under the illusion of control and safe existence, lurks the truth of nature greater than him (both as man and as human). Ben Ron bravely utilizes that illusion as a layer of protection from that same nature, by turning the illusion itself into a value.

Written by Moran Godes.
Translated by Timna Seligman.