To find his own voice, Ben Grzenia listens to others.

“It really helps you, and gets you closer to your voice and finding what you really care about in your studio practice. That really helps your drive,” the PAFA MFA student said of the four critics who have been visiting his studio this semester.

His PAFA critics: Mark Blavat, Michael Gallagher, and Eileen Neff, along with visiting critic Colleen Asper all have their own approach to working with Grzenia in his studio.
 

Grzenia said the voices of his critics give him a lot of questions to answer and opinions to mull over.

“Even if I have an odd, uncomfortable or negative critique, I still have the inevitable emotional response. In a weird way, that can result as a useful source for production,” Grzenia said.

The work he produces is deeply personal, focusing on family memories and his appreciation for his home state, Wisconsin.

“My father, he’s currently going through COPD (a lung disease) so there’s a lot of sentimental feelings of wanting to be back home,” Grzenia said. “So I started making these pieces about my memories with him and my family. It’s mostly around nature, mostly to do with Wisconsin landscapes and the Wisconsin River. How those memories have built me as a human being, through conversations with him when we’re in nature.”

Nature is not only bound in his memories but also in his identity.

Zinnia flowers are a mainstay in his parent’s garden. His last name, Grzenia, is so close to the flowers name that he and his mom both have tattoos of the shrub. His mom has the flower tattooed on her ankle. Grzenia’s zinnia is on his arm and the flower often pops up on his canvases.

When he’s not working in his studio, Grzenia is in PAFA’s printshop screenprinting patterns that remind him of where he’s come from.

“I almost think of pattern as tradition. We try to recreate traditions and connect with and keep doing them as time goes by. Life goes on, traditions change,” he said. “I’ve always had a really tight family but we’ve kind of dispersed and it’s about trying to hold tradition.”

After graduation Grzenia hopes to bring a piece of PAFA to the Midwest. He plans on moving closer to family and wants to teach.

“I’d love to be in a print shop teaching people to screenprint and woodcut and try to get people inspired to be active in the print shop.”