BenCrase is a self-taught figurative painter based out of San Diego, California and originally from Butte, Montana.He paints primarily with oil and oil sticks. His most recent work focuses on figures from the Old American West.Ben hopes his choices of color, texture, and off-kilter composition will bring an emotional reaction from the viewer…a reaction that may seem vaguely familiar and rooted somewhere in the past.
Being acutely aware of the USA’s not-so-perfect past, he really wanted to acknowledge that in his work. AlthoughBen wants his work to be positive, to depict the “good guys” of the era, the frustration about how destructive and violent our history was tends to be first and foremost in his mind while painting. There is an old American saying, How The West Was Won,Ben feels a more accurate statement would be How The West Was Lost.
