Ben Sanders at OCHI

Ben Sanders, Deformation (2022). Acrylic on canvas, 84 x 72 inches. Image courtesy of the artist and OCHI. Photo: Deen Babakhyi.

A massive celestial body hovers over an icy plane, enveloped by an iridescent orange glow. Its backdrop, a gradient skyline of frosty pink and indigo, completes the awe-inspiring scene for which there are no human spectators, only an endless expanse. Appearing in Ben Sanders’ painting Silence (all works 2022), this cosmic vista sets the tone for Deep Time—the artist’s third solo exhibition at OCHI and his latest post-humanist exploration.

Deep Time takes its name from the term coined by writer John McPhee, whose 1981 geological text Basin and Range proposed that the earth’s 4.5-billion-year lifespan exceeds the scope of human comprehension. Taking this concept as its starting point, the exhibition imagines a majestic posthuman future in which tremendous bioorganic masses and vast landscapes are themselves repositories of life—a place where, without the arbitrary systems and perceptions that organize human existence, an inviting tranquility abounds. Entering the gallery, I was surprised to find myself overcome with genuine delight. It was as if I’d crossed over into some new dimension, one characterized by a refreshing silence against the relentless commotion of Los Angeles’s Washington Boulevard. Somehow, Sanders’ departure from humanity draws us closer to it, illuminating its contours and limitations with striking clarity.

As I moved through the exhibition, I was struck by the abundance of black lava rocks that serve as its floor, their ancient presence bringing the concept of deep time into material form. A manifestation of Sanders’ interest in Hollywood set design and built environments, the stones render the exhibition a landscape unto itself, where the natural and supernatural are brought into a tangible conversation. The surrounding paintings underscore this impression through futuristic scenes that live, breathe, and evolve independently of anthropocentric frameworks. Sanders uses airbrush spray paint to color his canvases and tape to administer their borders—a process that itself embodies a kind of post-humanism through techniques meant to “hide [his] hand.”¹ This decentering of humanity—in both process and aesthetic—reveals the dynamism of a seemingly insentient planet. The trio of floating figures in Deformation exhibit unmistakable vitality as they cascade onto one another, melding together in a sensuous aesthetic dance. Their floral silhouettes recall forms of the modern world, yet, their hues are oversaturated, and, suspended mid-air against an otherworldly green horizon, they conjure a world not yet within reach. The gigantic moon in Timekeeper sits royally before a star-speckled sky, its sheer size commanding authority. Its mysterious blue-black tone resembles our moon, while a bright magenta stratosphere suggests that it orbits a world made anew. Here, the laws of the universe as we understand them are suspended, softening the rigid perceptions that govern our existence and honoring the earth’s continued evolution.

While contemporary visions of the future often succumb to binary notions of utopian possibility or dystopian despair, Sanders proposes a third option: deep reverence for existence itself. Surrounded by the future possibilities that await this planet, the demands and structures of contemporary life suddenly appear impossibly trivial. In this way, immersion into Deep Time offers the gift of perspective—a brief reprieve from the worlds we’ve constructed, a loosening of our grip on human-centered paradigms, and an embrace of creation, of which we are just a fleeting part.

Ben Sanders, Deep Time (installation view). Image courtesy of the artist and OCHI. Photo: Deen Babakhyi.

Ben Sanders, Deformation (detail) (2022). Acrylic on canvas, 84 x 72 inches. Image courtesy of the artist and OCHI. Photo: Deen Babakhyi.

Ben Sanders, Silence (2022). Acrylic on canvas, 84 x 72 inches. Image courtesy of the artist and OCHI. Photo: Deen Babakhyi.

Ben Sanders, Deep Time (installation view). Image courtesy of the artist and OCHI. Photo: Deen Babakhyi.

Donasia Tillery is an interdisciplinary artist, writer,and cultural worker whose work centers art as a mode of radical honesty, individual healing, and collective liberation. She earned her BA in Philosophy from Lehigh University and her MA in Africana Studies from New York University, and she is a recipient of MOZAIK Philanthropy’s Future Art Writers Award (2022). Her writing has been featured in Artillery, Curate LA, and Spinelli Kilcollin Journal.

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