Miner's Wives 1944

Ben created ‘Miner’s Wives’, and it’s a piece where process really takes center stage. The brick-red wall, painted with these scrubby, visible strokes, feels like a foundation, not just for the image but for the story it tells. The colors in this work are laid down in these layered, almost quilt-like patterns. There’s a real physicality to the medium, a sense that the paint has been pushed and pulled, scrubbed and layered. Look at the woman’s hands, how they’re clasped, almost shielding something – that area feels particularly dense with color, as if the emotion is concentrated there. This layering reminds me a bit of Guston, but with a folk art sensibility. Both artists aren’t afraid to let the process show, to leave the evidence of their hand in the work, which I think invites us into a more intimate conversation with the piece.