Ben Rader

Artist Statement

My motivation is preservation—of cherished personal memories and of Pennsylvania Dutch folk art motifs and dialect, continuing a longstanding cultural tradition. Each painting captures a real moment I have witnessed with my own eyes. I use the geometric and decorative folk patterns of my heritage, along with fragments of our fading written dialect, to express the deep feeling that place or instant still evokes in me. The dialect wraps itself around the subject, narrating the composition and giving voice to the memory in the language of my ancestors. By weaving these cultural elements into every piece, I preserve both the beauty of my lived experiences on canvas and a visual and linguistic tradition at risk of being lost.