"Words cannot express what my work means to me. But I hope that my work speaks for itself."
Oil painter and sculptor Ben Marcune was raised in Brooklyn, N.Y. and attended California’s UCLA, where he earned a master’s degree in human factors engineering. He holds many patents for surgical and orthopedic devices. In the field of surgical instrumentation, he is responsible for the invention of many of the state-of-the-art devices that are used in microsurgery today.
In mid-career, Ben made a career move to Pennsylvania, where he pursued his love for fine art and fully embraced both the visual and performing arts. He performed as a lead dancer with the Philadelphia Civic Ballet and continued the art education that he began at the San Francisco Art Institute by studying painting and sculpture at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. While there, Ben studied with Arthur Dacosta, Ben Kamihira and master painter and printmaker of the New York School, Will Barnet. |
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In addition to his Banana Factory studio, Ben maintains a studio in Bucks County, where he works on plein air paintings of New Hope and other historic sites in the tradition of Pennsylvania Impressionists Edward Redfield, Daniel Garber and others. He is regarded one of the region’s most sought-after artists and his work is included in a book about the tradition of Bucks County Impressionism and the impact of the New Hope School artists.
Ben has held faculty posts at Lehigh University's Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Mathematical Biology, Bethlehem, and in the college’s Department of Art and Architecture. A Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts fellow, his paintings show his love for the Pennsylvania landscape and the tradition of Walter Baum and the Impressionist School. Ben's works are housed in major international collections and museums, and he has also received portrait commissions from political figures and dignitaries.
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