Letting in the Light: Ben Sands, a retrospective

Ben Sands was born in 1920, at a time when modern wood engraving was undergoing a renaissance and artists started fine art engraving for private press and other high precision work. The title of the exhibition comes from a phrase coined by Ben himself in an interview in 2003 describing the act of cutting into a block of wood: "...automatically, with practice, your mind sees that block as a field of solid black.... when you start cutting you start letting the light into the block and revealing the world which ultimately you are going to present to the public. Because you are letting light in all the time, every cut you make lets another streak of light in…" Ben had a very thorough apprenticeship in the 1930s: between the ages of 14 and 17 he attended Willesden School of Art, where he received a rigorous education in drawing from still life, composition (placing his subjects in relation to the frame), craft and design, and illustration. Ben was given his first wood-block to work on while still at Willesden in the 1930s – he reckons he made a terrible mess of it! Later, he was strongly influenced by an exhibition of Chinese wood engraving in London. Years later, after serving in the Second World War, he decided to take up wood engraving and enrolled at Central School of Art, finding his 3 years at Willesden still stood him in good stead. His work extended into hand-printed books at his Shoestring Press, which moved with him to Whitstable in 1960. He is a member of the Society of Wood Engravers and exhibited with them for many years. This exhibition of Ben’s work will give his many fans the opportunity to see and celebrate the perception and humour in his distinctive style, and the chance to buy some of the prints.

Suitable for
18+

Admission
Free

Website
http://www.canterbury.co.uk/Beaney/whats_on/Exhibitions.aspx

Source: http://www.culture24.org.uk//se000216?id=EVENT513782