Photographer: Dustin Aksland
By using products from his daily routines— such as medications and cosmetics— as his medium, Ben Weiner maps out a picture of himself as the sum of his habits. His large-scale paintings and drawings address contemporary culture’s obsession with bodily enhancement through chemical products, whether by consuming energy drinks or taking illegal drugs.
In his current series of “Diary” drawings, Weiner soaks ink-coated chromatography paper in solutions of drugs, creating colorful psychedelic washes based on the substance’s chemical composition. He uses substances left from his own daily consumption, so that the drawings constitute a sort of chemical diary of his mental states. His drugs range from the psychedelic, to the addictive, to the mundane, including Marijuana, Paxlovid, MDMA, Codeine, Oxycontin, Viagra, Advil, and Vodka. Each of these drugs releases a unique spectrum of colors from the ink, enhancing the marks Weiner has made on the paper. Weiner has described this process as a “material embodiment of altered perception.” The series invokes the shifting cultural/legal status of drugs, and post-Covid anxieties surrounding mortality and mental health— issues that Weiner understands well coming from a family of medical professionals. Weiner often titles his works using a mixture of Spanish and English, reflecting the influence of his mixed ethnic background upon his practice of material translation. This influence extends back to his family’s fiber craft traditions of Puerto Rican Mundillo weaving and quilting, all of which inform his creation of works that assert formalism’s relation to the personal.
Weiner studied painting under muralist José Lazcarro Toquero at La Universidad de las Americas (Mexico), before completing his BA at Wesleyan University (CT). His work has been exhibited widely within the US and internationally, at institutions including The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, The Tarble Art Center, The Carnegie Art Museum, ArtSpace, La Gruta (CDMX), and The Boca Raton Museum of Art. Weiner has been included in recent gallery exhibitions at 56 Henry, Ochi Gallery, Below Grand, Grey Area, Hunted Projects, and Mark Moore Gallery. His work is represented in various public collections, including Microsoft, Sammlung, Progressive Insurance, and The Frederick R. Weisman Collection. He has been featured in publications including Artforum, Artnews, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, W Magazine, Interview Magazine, Artsy, and Vogue. Weiner lives and works in Queens, New York.