The Artwork of Benjamin Marra

I’ve hung out with Ben Marra a few times and I never knew what a kickass artist he was! His works reminds me of the Graham Roumieu cartoons that I love so much.

The subject matter of Ben’s paintings, sketches, and doodles run from aging superheros to gods to psychiatrists to the plain bizzare. My favorite ones contain monkeys ringing bells and people coming out of each other’s mouths. I’m going to shoot for my interpretation of the mouth people and say that it stands for making a point using someone else’s words, in many cases to make your opinion less vulnerable to scrutiny.

This is usually preferable. If you’re going to use someone else’s words to make your point then use authors who’s words have already been critiqued. If I say, “Plato says a good city is one that is ‘wise, courageous, temperate, and just’, therefore we can’t consider Philadelphia a good city because of the unwise $1,000,000,000 spent on stadiums.” On the other side, if I say “Philadelphia isn’t a good city because it was ranked really low in a poll I saw on TV,” then the quotation is abused if you are really trying to make a point. Ben’s work seems to portray positive “mouth people” in yellow and negatives in red.

Maybe I should just enjoy the monkeys.


Comments

2 responses to “The Artwork of Benjamin Marra”

  1.  Avatar
    Anonymous

    This is my favorite: http://www.shag.com

    Monkeys, fezzes, alcohol…what more could you want?
    -Brian

  2. I’m trying to think of something, but I just can’t.