Ben Tour

We all have secrets. Some are harmless and disappear like loose change or toenail clippings in the cushions of our couch. Others are more embarrassing, the type we’d like to erase from our memories—if of course we could do so without having our brains scrambled via lobotomy. Unfortunately, life’s not that simple. Secrets often slip from the mouths of the people entrusted to keep them safe, signaling not only the betrayal of an intimate agreement, but a ripple effect that’s nearly impossible to stop. Whether whispered at cocktail parties or transmitted across time zones during late night phone conversations, secrets travel in a manner all their own. It’s a rather compelling social phenomenon, and a perfect example of the type of scenario that piques the interest of a curious observer like Ben Tour.

The Vancouver-based painter and illustrator—who has forged a successful career translating his fascination with human behavior into beautifully dense character portraits—can best be described as a sort of visual anthropologist. For the better part of a decade Tour has catalogued and archived an oddly fascinating gallery of characters assembled from scraps of truth and fiction gathered from everyday life.

“I would describe it as a visual diary of characters and personalities,” says the 29-year-old Toronto-born artist, in reference to his work. “My approach is different every time. But yeah, I steal parts of different things and bring them together—interesting people both real and imagined, and animals and objects that they connect with that are visually appealing. I think my most successful work has a definite mystery to it that lets the viewer interpret their own story.”

While viewer interpretation does play a major role in the way Tour’s work is received, personal connection is equally as important. The abundant emotional content built into each of his pieces is at once intimidating and mesmerizing. In one portrait a bald old man with squinty eyes, crow’s feet, and a beak-like nose peers out from behind a pair of oversized black-rimmed glasses. His gaze is skeptical but fixed, as though he’s sizing up an unseen adversary. Another depicts a woman, sullen, sitting by herself beside two deer and an old typewriter—crimson-colored flowers scattered at her feet. The expression on her face is cold and detached, and the bowed arch of her spine seems to reveal an excess of grief.

Tour’s uncanny ability to capture these minute gestures and waning expressions with his feverish strokes and emotive lines forms the foundation of his distinctive style. Most importantly however, his choice of subjects is what intimately informs the direction of each piece. Rarely are the men in his portraits handsome or confident, instead they appear corpulent and misguided, emaciated and overwrought—too concerned with their own neuroses to be bothered by the notion of societal norms.

Tour’s female subjects, however, are portrayed in a much different light. Flaws and imperfections are, for the most part, hard to discern at first glance. Pouty lips and long sensual necklines punctuate attractive, symmetrical faces. Thin arms and long slender legs appear designed intently for Fashion Week runways. But closer scrutiny, particularly with regards to the eyes, hints at a more complicated reality lurking beneath each subject’s surface.

“It’s all in the eyes,” Tour explains. “If the character is looking right at you they want your attention, look away and they take you with them. I try to make the females look strong and fragile—one emotion for each eye.

The human figure has always been my thing,” he adds. “As a kid I always started my drawings from the eyes and worked outwards—they always seemed like the most important part of a person. [Then] I got really serious about drawing [while] in high school—I was constantly doodling—and just haven’t stopped.”
(matthewnewton.us)


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