Benjamin J. Fountain '05

— Painting Alumnus —

“To make a painting is a declaration,” says Benjamin J. Fountain, known to most as Benny. “At a base level, the drive to make art comes out of an astonishment at life, at the world, at the way the world looks through my particular eyes. It just feels like
it’s full of mystery and goodness… I love to communicate that to others.”

Communicating his inspiration has earned this 2005 PNCA alumnus a prestigious Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Scholarship. It will cover all his graduate school expenses, from tuition to travel to art supplies, as he studies for a year in Rome and earns his MFA from Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia.

Life and art are taking Benny far from Moscow, Idaho, where he grew up surrounded by rolling farmlands. “The bright green new sprouts of spring give way to summer’s colors of pale greens, red browns, and the rich gold of wheat. In harvest time the
combines kick up dry red dirt and wheat chaff, creating a haze in the air that blurs the horizon and tints the bright blue sky with a purple haze,” he writes of the landscape informing his aesthetic. He returns to Idaho frequently to visit family and paint.

"Untitled" oil on board, 2004

Supportive family members and nurturing high school teachers encouraged Benny’s budding artistic talent, and he eventually studied Painting at PNCA. “I think it was really good,” he says of the experience, especially “having teachers that were really
good painters. You could go and see a show that they were having out in galleries. Before I chose my classes, I’d look up my teachers on the Internet and see their work. There was a lot of inspiration from seeing their art and their lives.”

He also cites his professors’ approach to critiques and criticism as very important to his artwork. “I grew up with this idea that artists just do what they want and no one can touch that, no one can critique that,” Benny explains. But he’d reached the point where he wanted serious critique in order to advance his skills and discover whether his ideas were “being accurately expressed or insufficiently expressed.”

"Emma's Kitchen," oil on panel, 2004

The Painting department fulfilled his wish. “We were encouraged to participate in critiques, and I think it really helped, to be able to put your criticism into words, to learn how to do that in a way that doesn’t cut, that doesn’t hurt people. The stuff that you’re doing is pretty personal… I learned to take criticism well.” He says this definitely helped his work, which received the College’s annual Thesis Award.

As for the future, Benny plans to be a working artist and teacher. “I would love it if I could continue to probe into painting, to find out what it’s capable of, for the rest of my life,” he says. “Also, I truly do enjoy opening up that realm to others, through
teaching. I could see myself being like a lot of my professors —they are teaching, whether full time or not — and continuing with my artwork.”

BFA Majors

Communication Design
General Fine Arts
Illustration
Intermedia
Painting
Photography
Printmaking
Sculpture