Benji Hicks’s whimsical, personality-filled animals have been playing on Jasper’s Tiny Gallery site since the beginning of August. Keep reading to learn more about Hicks and how he makes his art!
Hicks has considered Columbia his home since birth—over 50 years now—having resided in West Columbia, specifically, since 1973. He is a completely self-taught artist, woodcarver, and woodblock print maker, though he can recall the act of creating being valuable to him from an extremely young age.
“For as long as I can remember, I have always been an artist. Drawing with pencils and pens, and later, painting with watercolor” Hicks says. “Growing up, I got to spend many hours in my dad’s woodworking shop, learning to use tools and make things. This is when I found a love for wood carving.”
Hicks’s professional work as a carpenter compounded with his self-driven exploration of art, ultimately leading to a new relationship with woodblock printmaking—and to handmaking unique frames for each individual print.
A Japanese woodblock printmaking technique called Mokuhanga is what caught Hicks’s attention: “Mokuhanga can best be described as a multi woodblock printing technique where there is a keyblock (black outline) and a separate color block carved for each color in the print. My prints are made with anywhere from 2 blocks to as many as 21 blocks per print…since every print is handmade and shows subtle differences, each one is considered an original piece of art.”
Mokuhanga is similar to other printmaking techniques in that the artist carves into solid surface before adding a colored medium and pressing some form of paper onto the surface before pulling it off to reveal a design. Since embarking on this journey, Hicks has also experimented with adjacent forms of printmaking as he becomes more comfortable with his personal style.
When it comes to what Hicks likes to make, he is “always drawn to funny little characters and…animals doing human things,” he says. “With animals, it doesn’t matter what age they are. They can be young or old and wise, and still get away with being playful and silly or just out to have fun. I tend to let nature take its course and inspire me in my art,” Hicks says. “If you see a character show up in my artwork, then you can believe that I had an encounter with that sort of creature in nature, a dream or maybe even a song brought them to mind. Each idea is a seed. Once planted, it grows into a new series.”
These series may emerge from a single seed, but it is just that—an idea. Hicks does not have a firm idea of how exactly an idea will emerge into its final physical form; he prefers to let the characters and their stories bloom organically.
“If it makes me smile or even giggle a little, then I know I’m on to something. As I create one, I see the next,” Hicks says. “They lead one to another until the end of that path. Some paths are longer than others.”
This Tiny Gallery show is a mix of old and new from Hicks—all coming together to tell a new story. A “woodsy theme” ties this collection together, with “Bear Loves Honey” being one of his favorites.
“I was trying to make each print bring a smile and also evoke the imagining of the before and after. I try to capture the moment just before or just as the main event happens,” Hicks says. “You can imagine if there were more panels like a comic book, you would see the bear getting ready for a hike and packing his backpack to go look for honey. Afterwards, he would be happy with his found stash of honey. I tried to capture the moment he sees the bee and feels the anticipation of finding honey.”
Hicks hopes that when people view the pieces, they “will recognize these moments and use their own imagination to fill in the before and after.”
For more on Mokuhanga and the art of Benji Hicks’s, check out the fall 2023 print issue of Jasper Magazine, releasing October 2023 — details on release party are coming soon. In the mean time, Hicks’ Tiny Gallery show will be up until August 31st at Jasper’s virtual gallery site.
After the show, you can see his work on his Facebook, at the Cayce Arts Guild, the South Carolina Artists Group, and the Meeting Street Artisan Market.
