Benedict Oddi

The desire for freedom, escape, and exploration influence the narrative of my oil paintings. In my representations, I examine the possibilities of utopia and dystopia through the escapist tendency to create a parallel realism. The crafted pictorial environment is meant to emphasize a disconnection to a tactile reality, where by ideas and experiences are confused, allowing the viewer to assemble a personal narrative. By doing so, the work evokes a feeling of uneasiness through improbability; this imaginary voyage should feel familiar and sublime, filled with imminent danger.

My theater-like arrangements of figures in landscape are placed in situations of anxiety and peril, intervened by trace elements of otherworldliness. During the course of these works I have examined human natures, social and institutional conventions. While my reflection was approached through escapism related to utopian and dystopian philosophy, I have tried not to align with one thought or the other, but choose to respond to both concerning the nature of free will.