
Spotlight Artist
Benjamin Degen
Northeast
Artist Statement
To be human is to move.
We had to move to get here.
We have to move to keep going.
We must move to become who we will be.
We are a sea of humanity that flows as a contiguous mass in waves and tides. We flow across the entire earth: rising to the tops of mountains, filling the valleys, washing onto the shores of the most remote islands. The salty blood within us, and our life itself, flows as a current in one unending ocean that cannot be confined by geography or boundary. I wanted to paint the continuity of this movement and the power of us moving together—a single drop of water cannot be divided from the entirety of the ocean.
We had to move to get here.
We have to move to keep going.
We must move to become who we will be.
We are a sea of humanity that flows as a contiguous mass in waves and tides. We flow across the entire earth: rising to the tops of mountains, filling the valleys, washing onto the shores of the most remote islands. The salty blood within us, and our life itself, flows as a current in one unending ocean that cannot be confined by geography or boundary. I wanted to paint the continuity of this movement and the power of us moving together—a single drop of water cannot be divided from the entirety of the ocean.
Artist's Additional works
Works shared by the artist outside of their featured New American Paintings selections


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