Brewing biblical themes from coffee stains

Monday, May 25, 2009

 Benjamin Allain, The Hand of God (detail), 2009

A talented young man named Benjamin Allain recently took an opportunity to relocate from Summerside, PEI to Gatineau, QC, partly to experience a place more populated and diverse. “Just to see if people acted differently,” he explains.

Allain’s curiosity about human behaviour is mirrored in his artwork, particularly in the coffee stain drawings that he began making after a brief introduction to Roschach inkblot interpretation a few years ago.

“It really intrigued me, those inkblots,” Allain recalls. “How no one could be wrong in what they saw in the random shape.”

This inkblot intrigue means Allain's subsequent discovery of spilled coffee as art inspiration was itself not entirely random: “A late night, no ideas for a while, and then a little scrap of paper with a brown stain that looked like an elephant,” the artist explains.

“I’ve tried other things for small bodies of work. Pepsi, beer, cream soda, orange juice, milk. But there’s this really wonderful thing about coffee,” he continues.

“The browns naturally give it a nostalgic, warm feel, and depending on how it dries it can give these dark, really elegant lines that I couldn’t draw myself. And if it’s in the right light, where the yellows start to come out, it glows.”

On another level, Allain sees the irony in how he uses everyday coffee stains to make drawings of things that are epic, iconic, and even biblical in theme—things like the hand of God, the founding of Rome, virgins, and serial killers.

“It’s like a reverse Dutch still life. Using something very ordinary to make something very revered. I think it puts things in perspective, in some way. Puts everything on the same level in terms of idolization.”