Ben Schnirel has been a professional landscape artist since 1986, receiving many awards, including the prestigious “Arts for the Parks” national competition winning one of the top 100 places for his painting of “Double Arch.”
His work has appeared on television programs such as 60 Minutes and Good Morning America. Southwest Art and US Art magazines have covered Ben’s events and achievements.
Galleries in Park City, Sedona, and Colorado have represented his work. He has been commissioned to create murals and paintings for corporations, Salt Lake Community College, and individual collectors.
Ben paints and explores the red rock desert of the southwest. He translates the endless shapes and colors to be found in the sandstone canyons and mesas. His knowledge of geology is evident in his painting, but is transcended by his intimate sense of the spirit of the desert. He raises his interpretive works beyond the level of realism to a poetic view of nature from a more remote period of time.
For more than 10 years, Ben has developed an exciting technique using Moab desert sand and acrylic paint. Beyond his mastery of other mediums, paintings made with this technique are hyperrealistic with their textural and sculptural style.
For much of his life, the artist’s studio and home were near Moab, Utah along the Colorado River in a spectacular canyon setting. Earlier in his life at the age of 22, he made a 30-day solitary vision quest in this same area, a primitive wilderness of deep canyons, mysterious rock formations and seldom seen arches. There he sketched into his journal his experience, and became inspired with painting the high desert’s magnificent scenery.
The visualization and creating of artwork has been a major part of my journey through life, recapturing moods and places of inspiration, and dreaming of visions never seen before. There are so many potential paintings in my mind that the possibilities are endless. To me, painting is like sculpting on canvas, building three-dimensional forms using light and shadow in harmony with warm and cool colors. Composition and perspective are important in the overall process of painting realistic and powerful images. I continue the exploration that expresses my passion toward the landscape paintings for which I am known.
