M. Benjamin Herndon’s work explores the perceptual and emotional possibilities of light, color, and materiality, bringing together scientific precision and spiritual inquiry. Working across linen, granite, wood, and paper, he uses metal oxide pigments, graphite, and other carefully formulated materials to create surfaces that shift subtly with light and with the viewer’s movement. Though rooted in abstraction, Herndon’s work is grounded in lived experience—a flash of brightness across a waterfall, the faint glow of dawn, or the quiet tonal shifts found in music and in the natural world. These sensations do not function as subjects to be depicted, but as catalysts that begin each new work.
Herndon grew up in the Sierra Nevada mountains of Northern California and is now based in Providence, Rhode Island, where he works in a studio housed in an historic textile mill. He received his MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and his BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. His work has been exhibited internationally, and he has held residencies at the Tamarind Institute for Fine Art Lithography, the Josef & Anni Albers Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, Marble House Project, and others.