Courtney Benjamin

Artist Catalogue

Virtual Exhibition

Centrum Mundi:

World-building has become a staple into driving my creativity and has become a force that has helped fulfil my free time. Having thought out and written many characters and a large, overhead plot, I have narrowed my story down to two species that are central to the main narrative that I have condescend [not sure this is the correct word here but unsure what you’re meaning?]. Both have different backgrounds which leads to the final conflict between each other.

While at Michaelis, I never considered myself to be an artist within the context of the challenging practical assignments [practices?] of Michaelis assignments. My creativity lives in an electronic/ imaginary world-building sphere, not in the sense of creating physical artworks with concept etc. Since high school, I have created different characters on paper and wanted to explore the depths and the personalities with each one of them, thus researching into world-building and what it entails when it comes to developing and writing stories. It has become a haven for me to express my imagination and basing their narratives on my own experiences through imagining their stories from scratch; taking inspiration from mythologies in order to create my own. Using the method that I have – by writing down and drawing characters – albeit obsessive, I have managed to resolve a way to show the inevitable problem.

I had mapped out worlds through books and sketches to show the potential differences, cultures and details, after researching and being inspired by the works by those who have created their own worlds. One of the biggest problems I faced when conceptualising my world, was narrowing down my conflicting species to only two, as there were many other species that contributed in various subplots to the overarching narrative of my world. I would use two black books to make any changes to plot threads and used documenting tools, such as sticky notes pasted in the books or making quick mind maps, to expand on an idea within the moment. The cathartic yet obsession [obsessive?] devotion I have towards my world-building, has given me [the ability?] to express the characters and the stories I wish to tell one day.