Benedict Drew
(b. 1977, Kyneton, Australia) lives and works in Whitstable and Margate, UK.

Benedict Drew works across video, sculpture, drawing, painting, and music. He creates large-scale installations, often concerned with ecstatic responses to socio-political anxiety. Solo exhibitions include The Trickle-Down Syndrome, Whitechapel Gallery, London; KAPUT, QUAD, Derby; Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool; and THE ANTI ECSTATIC MACHINES and Heads May Roll, Matt’s Gallery, London.Drew’s work has been exhibited internationally including at AdelaideFestival, Australia; Lofoten International Arts Festival, Norway; and in Hayward Touring exhibitions British Art Show 8 and Shonky: The Aesthetics of Awkwardness. He has been commissioned to create videoworks for public spaces including Art on the Underground, London and Focal Point Gallery, Southend-on-Sea. The installation KAPUT (2015) was acquired by the Arts Council Collection.Since the 1990s Benedict Drew has performed in improvising ensembles, programmed concerts and club nights, and was a producer at the cultural charity London Musicians Collective. Drew has released several records on labels including Mana Records and Kaleidoscope, and often collaborates with other artists and musicians. He launched his own label, Thanet Tape Centre, in May 2020 andregularly makes work for radio. Benedict Drew is a Lecturer in Fine Art at Slade School of Fine Art,University College London and is represented by Matt’s Gallery, London.





SOLO EXHIBITIONS




2019     Trapped in a sticky shed with side chain compression, IMT, London

2018 THE ANTI ECSTATIC MACHINES, Matt’s Gallery, London

2017 The Trickle-Down Syndrome, Whitechapel Gallery, London

2017 KAPUT, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

The Saw Tooth Wave, Centre for Contemporary Art, Derry~Londonderry (2016-17)

Sump, Collaborative work with Nicholas Brooks, Project/Number, London

Spelunking, Open School East, Margate

2015 Disappearing Acts, Lofoten International Art Festival, Norway

de-re-touch, Art on the Underground, London

2015 KAPUT, QUAD Gallery, Derby

2014 Heads May Roll, Matt’s Gallery, London

The Persuaders, Adelaide Festival, SASA Gallery Adelaide, Australia

Zero Hour Petrified, Ilam Campus Gallery, School of Fine Arts, University of Canterbury, New Zealand

Public Address, Big Screen Commission, Focal Point Gallery, Southend

2013 The Onesie Cycle (VIP), Phoenix and Two Queens Gallery, Leicester

The Onesie Cycle, Rhubaba, Edinburgh

2012 Now Thing, Whitstable Biennale

THIS IS FEEDBACK, Outpost, Norwich

Gliss, Cell Project Space, London 

The Persuaders, Circa Site / AV Festival, Newcastle




SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS


2020/1 Towner International, Towner, Eastbourne

2019   ON EDGE: Living in an Age of Anxiety, Science Gallery London

EXAGGERATE EVERYTHING, BACKLIT, Nottingham

Late Junction, BBC Radio 3, commissioned mix tape

Catching Flies, Studio 3 Gallery, University of Kent, Canterbury

2018 Journey with the ‘Waste Land’, Turner Contemporary, Margate

Shonky: The Aesthetics of Awkwardness, Hayward Touring Exhibition, Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA) and Bury Art Museum and Sculpture Centre.

Middlesbrough Art Weekender

Ecstasy in Norwich, Lower Green, Norwich

A Portal, collaborative video with Marcia Farquhar for her solo exhibition Difficuλt at Southwark Park Galleries, London

2017 Shonky: The Aesthetics of Awkwardness, Hayward Touring Exhibition, The MAC, Belfast

Emotion + the Tech(no)body, Austrian Cultural Forum, London

2016   Into boundless space, I leap, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge

                      Stories in the Dark, The Beaney, Canterbury

2015   British Art Show 8, Leeds, Edinburgh, Norwich and Southampton (2015-17)

Plague of Diagrams, ICA, London

Graphics Interchange Format: 25 Years of Focal Point Gallery, Focal Point Gallery, Southend

The Curves of the Needle, BALTIC 39, Newcastle

2014 Acid Rain, Island Gallery, Brussels

TTTT, Jerwood Space, London

Obliteration Device, IMT, London

Golden Age Problems, Auto Italia, London

Lily & Mim, Aberdeen, Scotland

2013 Museum of Arts and Design, New York, USA

BLASTOMERE, Young Projects Gallery, Los Angeles, USA

Bold Tendencies, London

SNAP: Art at the Aldeburgh Festival, Aldeburgh

R-U-Dead Yet?, Summerhall, Edinburgh

Fresh Trauma, Ceri Hand Gallery, London

Is That All There Is?, Import Projects, Berlin

While It Lasts, A Showreel. Eastside Projects, Birmingham

While It Lasts, A Showreel. Milton Keynes Gallery

Unspecific Objects, The Royal Standard, Liverpool

LONG LIVE THE NEW FLESH, ICA, London (event and publication)

2012 REVOLVER I, Part 3, Matt's Gallery, London

The Stone of Folly, Downstairs at Great Brampton House, Hereford; Paraproduction, Boetzerlaer|Nispen, Amsterdam

Young London, V22, London

Soundworks, ICA, London

Containing the Possible, Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London

There is not and never had been anything to understand, ASC Gallery, London

Things That Have Interested Me, Waterside Contemporary, London

Writtle Calling, radio broadcast

Whitstable Biennale

2011 Seeing in the dark, CIRCA Projects, Newcastle

PIGDOGANDMONKEYFESTOS, Banner Repeater, London

Auto Italia Live, Episode 1: Talking Objects in Space, Auto Italia, London

Reclaim the Mural, The Work in Progress, Whitechapel Gallery, London

The Persuaders, James Taylor Gallery, London

Tomorrow's World, Nutbrook Studios, London













CURATED EXHIBITIONS




2014 Escape Routes, Limbo, Margate, featuring Angus Braithwaite, Nicholas Brooks, David Burrows, Ami Clarke, Catriona Clayson, Matt Copson, Vera Karlsson, Rebecca Lennon, Terence McCormack, Heather Phillipson, Laura Smith, Milo Waterfield         

2013 We Object!, Aid & Abet, Cambridge, featuring Nicholas Brooks, Rebecca Lennon, Beth Collar, Angus Braithwaite, Heather Phillipson and Jem Finer




PERFORMANCES AND SCREENINGS




2019 Music performance With Angharad Davies, Cafe Oto, London Performance With Plastique Fantastique, Horniman Museum, London Music Performance, For resonance FM at Iklectic Arts Lab, London Performance With Plastique Fantastique, GiG, Munich
Performance, A Friends Rendezvous, Southwark Park Galleries, London Performance, IMT, London

2018 Skeen Night, CGP, London

2015-17 Sludge Manifesto 2011, Moving Pictures, British Council touring program,

France, China, New Zealand, Azerbaijan, Tate Britain, London, Spain, Egypt, Estonia, Ireland, Uzbekistan, India, Ukraine, Greece

2017 Art Night 2017, Whitechapel Gallery, London

Cafe Oto, London

2016 Future Late, Tate Modern, London

2015 Annual Music Festival, Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge

SUPERNORMAL Festival, Braziers Park, Oxfordshire

SUPERWOOFER, Matt’s Gallery, London

Salon Dyslexic, Primary, Nottingham

2014 Dyslexic Shanty, CHELSEA Space, Chelsea College of Arts, London

Arnolfini Bristol, commissioned performance, Tempa - with musician Paul Abbott.

Serpentine Gallery, London. Extinction Marathon: screening of video Not Happy (2014)

Open File, Museum Art Oxford, audio performance.

Remote Performances, Outlander, Scotland, work for radio

2013 Annual Music Festival, Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridgeshire                                                     

2010 Images Festival, The Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto, Canada

2009 Performa 09, Light Industry, New York (with Emma Hart)

The Old Police Station, London (with Emma Hart)

Café Oto, London (with Tetsuya Umeda)

The Unnamed Music Festival, Café Oto, London (with Tom Chant, Angharad Davies, John Edwards)

Cut & Splice: Living Rooms Festival, Wilton’s Music Hall, London (with The Domestic Appliance Audio Research Society)

Courtisane Festival, Ghent, Belgium (with Chris Watson and Emily Richardson)                                                                                      

2008 Kill Your Timid Notion Tour, ICA, London (with Greg Pope)

The Lux Presents Six Films by Emily Richardson (DVD launch), Café Oto, London (with Chris Watson and Emily Richardson); Untitled (2008), Kill Your Timid Notion Festival, Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee (with Sachiko M.)

UNTITLED 5, Nought to Sixty, ICA, London (with Emma Hart)

LMC Festival, Café Oto, London (with Tom Chant, Angharad Davies and John Edwards)

UNTITLED 4, LUX presents Live Cinema, Arcola Theatre, London (with Emma Hart)

Self-Cancellation, INSTAL, Beaconsfield, London









PUBLICATIONS




2019 The Ughhh Ballads, Cassette, Bloxham Tapes
2017 Crawling Through Tory Slime, LP record, Mana
2015 Dreamspace Of The Burger King Commuter, Cassette, Kaleidoscope 

2014 Zero Hour Petrified, exhibition catalogue, Sofa Press. ISSN no. 1176-1164

Public Address, Focal Point Gallery ISBN 978-1-907185-18-2

2012 Revolver Part 3 white book, published by Matt's Gallery, London;                  

2011 ON THE UPGRADE, Box containing limited edition artworks by Patrick Coyle, Benedict Drew, Jamie George, Tamarin Norwood, Damien Roach and David Rule. Edition series of 50 Published by or-bits.com, September 2011; How I Failed To Make Man, Merkske ISBN 978-1907829017; Expanded Cinema: Art, Performance and Film, Tate Publishing, May 2011, ISBN 978-1854379740;Nought to Sixty, ICA, ISBN 978-1900300599; Emily Richardson, Time Frames, Stour Valley Arts Ltd, ISBN 978-0953534081   

                                                                           




SELECTED PRESS




2019 Danny Birchall, Temporary Exhibition On Edge: Living in an Age of Anxiety, Science Gallery London, Museums Journal, December

Robert Barry, Benedict Drew’s anxious-making new film, Apollo Magazine, October

Jack Smurthwaite, Benedict Drew Serves Boris Johnson Cold, Frieze, September

Arwa Haider, Can Visual Art Really Help Us Combat Anxiety? Elephant Magazine, September

Free Thinking with Shahidha Bari, BBC Radio 3, September

Front Row Late with Mary Beard, BBC 2, September

2018 Matthew Turner, The Symptom and the Cure, MAP Magazine, September

2017 Fiorella Lanni, Emotion + the Tech(no)body, this is tomorrow, November

Tom Matchett, Review: Emotion + the Tech(no)body Exhibition, FAD Magazine, October

Emily Watkins, The Collision of Art and Economics, Plinth, July

Grace Beaumont, Benedict Drew at Whitechapel Gallery, ArtForum, July

Anna Aguilar, Something Nasty Trickles Down: Benedict Drew (Whitechapel Gallery), Trebuchet Magazine, June

Hannah Luxton, A Current Under Sea: Margate Journeys With The Waste Land,

The Quietus, February

2016 Tom Melick, Benedict Drew & Nicholas Brooks, Frieze, April

Jessica Klingelfuss, British Art Show 8 arrives in Edinburgh with new and expanded works, Wallpaper*, February

Karen Wright, British Art Show 8: Computers and cameras dominate and leave painting and sculpture out in the cold, Independent, February

Alexander Hawkins, Typography, Tom of Finland and the technological sublime in the British Art Show 8, It’s Nice That, February

2015 Miranda Bryant, Video artwork for Tube escalators shakes a fist at ‘beach body’ adverts, Evening Standard, November

Taylor-Dior Rumble, Going Underground with British artist Benedict Drew, BBC Entertainment & Arts, November

Tom Emery, Benedict Drew: KAPUT, Art Monthly, October

2014 Andrew Witt, Artforum, April

Nathaniel Budowski, Puncturing Fantasies: Exhausted Images and the ‘Me’ Generation, Frieze, May

Caroline Douglas, Contemporary Art Society Friday Dispatch, March

Martin Herbert, ArtReview, March

Alex Needham, Benedict Drew: 'It felt like psychogeographic warfare in my head', The Guardian Online Australia, March

Yvette Greslé, Benedict Drew: Heads May Roll, this is tomorrow, March

Skye Sherwin and Robert Clark, Moore Rodin, Sarah Wright, Patrick Scott: the week's art shows in pictures, The Guardian, February

2013 Martin Herbert, Future Greats: Benedict Drew, Art Review, February

2012 Tessa Norton, Emotion + the Tech(no)body review, Wire, December

Sam Thorne, The Year in Review, Frieze, November-December

Eliza Apperly, REVOLVER, Part 3, this is tomorrow, November

Jackie D. Koerner-Hintz, REVOLVER, Part 3, Matt's Gallery, Art Pit, November

Saim Demircan, An Orchestra Falling Down a Cliff, Mousse Magazine, Issue 35 Susanna Davies-Crook, First Exposure: Benedict Drew, Dazed and Confused, November

Isobel Harbison, The Map is the Territory/ Re-Run, Frieze, June–August 2012

Sam Thorne, AV Festival, Frieze, May 2012






Benedict Drew is represented by Matt’s Gallery, London.