“The paintings engage the language of painterly abstraction and action painting, a language I’ve come to know well over the last several years and care deeply about. I’m attentive to it. When a gesture tips from intuitive to fussy, when a surface resists or absorbs too much, when confidence hardens into habit. These distinctions matter to me, and they come from years of looking, failing, and learning inside that tradition. At the same time, this work is not an attempt to inhabit that history. It is about fitting and not fitting. About fluency without ease.

Formally, the paintings interrupt themselves. Atmospheric gesture is flattened or cut short. References to architecture, construction, the figure, geometry, pattern, and spatial organization sit uneasily beside painterly marks. Painting slips toward drawing, or objectness, or installation. The works lean into the architecture of the gallery, borrowing from it, resisting it.” - Benjamin Terry.

Benjamin Terry lives and works in Dallas, TX. He received an MFA in Drawing and Painting from the University of North Texas in 2013. He has exhibited work in numerous solo and group exhibitions both nation wide and internationally including; N.Y, London, Mexico City, San Francisco and Texas. Recent exhibitions include Chateau Show (2024), The Aldredge House, Dallas, Tx; Done Being Cool (2024), Galleri Urbane, Dallas, Tx; and Funny Feeling (2025) Paper Mill Projects, Chatham, N.Y. His artwork has been exhibited at the Dallas Art Fair, Aspen Art Fair, and Untitled Art, Miami. Terry was an artist-in- resident at The Maple Terrace, Brooklyn, N.Y. 2018; 100 West Corsicana in 2020; PRIXEL, Hudson, N.Y. in 2025; and the Bodecker project at the Cedars Union, Dallas, Tx. Curatorial projects are an integral part of his practice with curated exhibitions at Kirk Hopper Fine Arts, Galleri Urbane, and Texas Woman’s University. Terry was featured in volumes 96 and 132 of New American Paintings, and has received both the Clare Hart Degoyler and the Arch and Anne Giles Kimbrough awards from the Dallas Museum of Art. He is currently a Distinguished Senior Lecturer at the University of Texas, Arlington.