 Our community is teeming with artistic talent and creativity. Through events like The Railway City Arts Crawl and exhibits at The St. Thomas Elgin Public Art Centre along with several local studios and workshops available it's evident that St. Thomas is growing into a incredible hub of artistic talent. One that is exciting to celebrate! Back in February during the Railway City Arts Crawl we invited crawlers to vote for their favourite artist and this year's People's Choice winner was Ben Vandevooren. We recently caught up with Ben to learn more about him and his art! What is your background in art? How did you get started? I've always drawn. Since I was young, inspired by cars, motorcycles, cartoons, tattoos, and all kids of street art. I used to draw and paint on my skateboards as a way of standing out. I still do. What inspires you? I love drawing with friends and bouncing ideas back and forth. Social media is great for finding great artists and inspiration for me to push ideas and progress consistently.  What is your creative process like? I work with all sorts of mediums but it always starts with a loosely drawn pencil sketch. From there I choose my substrate and medium that will best suit and transfer it over. Do you ever experience creative blocks? How do you move past them? All the time. I have a bunch of different paintings and drawings in different stages because I simply get bored of working on the same thing forever. It's nice to get into a painting sometimes later and see it in a different light. I can rework and finish things I'm feeling in the moment.  How would you describe your art?
Bright colours, bold lines, and pushing imaginations with weird ideas. What do you want people to experience through your work? A smile! Any kind of relation to the piece or just to get people talking about it. Listening to other people's perspectives on what they see always blows me away and keeps the passion thriving! Where can people find more of your work? Look me up on social media! Instagram & Etsy - @riotwithben Facebook - Ben Vandevooren (I do spontaneous art auctions on my Facebook page for friends and family.
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