Hex 000000 by Ben Hopper

Released Oct 20, 2023

“The price that we pay
When evil walks the planet
And love is crushed like clay
The master races, the chosen peoples
The burning temples, the weeping cathedrals”
— 'Love' by Paul Simon

ARTIST STATEMENT - Oct 17, 2023, Israel

“Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity”
— George Carlin

As an artist, my job is to make art and share it in the hopes that people like it enough to pay me for it, so I can make more art.
This concept is so distant from me right now; Today, my heart and spirit are crushed.
Days spent struggling to write these words, paralysed by anxiety, grief, anger and fear, my mind is a dark blur.

More than a week since the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, and I sit just a few hours' drive from the crime scene in Israel.
In the skies, I hear Israeli Air Force fighter aircrafts passing 24/7 and I wonder how many more innocent lives they’ll extinguish.

“I'm not Jewish, not Christian, and not Muslim.
I'm not from the east and not from the west, in my heart, there are no borders.
Love is the religion, and the universe is the book.”
— Rumi

I was born and raised in Israel, but 15 years ago I left for London.
I felt disconnected from my identity as an Israeli and as a Jewish person, but more than feeling disconnected from it, I WANTED to disconnect from it.
I wanted to identify as a Human more and before anything else.
I aspired to be free of nations, politics and religions, labels and misconceptions. It helped a LOT, especially as an artist.
But of course, as much as I want to disconnect, I am still also Israeli / Jewish …and today, more than ever with the rise of antisemitism globally, I am terrified to hold this identity.

In recent years, I’ve adopted a nomadic lifestyle. It gave me perspective on my homeland, our neighbours and the Middle East, the region I’m from.
I returned to Israel less than a month ago to spend the winter with my family, process work, and attend Midburn, the Israeli equivalent to Burning Man, for the first time. It was meant to take place at the beginning of November, about 10km from where the Re'im Supernova music festival massacre happened. With the festival now cancelled and our whole community traumatized, I’m here in full panic mode.

As horrifying as it is for me to write these words, the threat of a 2nd holocaust and 3rd world war starting here now is VERY real.
My family and I are both scared to stay in Israel and scared to leave it.

At the same time, ironically and tragically - the Israeli government is now causing the suffering and death of so many more Palestinian civilians.
I see people all over the world manipulated by propaganda, divided into camps, arguing who’s right - while the death of the kids in Israel or the death of the kids Gaza is not something you can put on a scale. It is not arguable.

“Bring down the government
They don't speak for us”
— Radiohead

Thanks to the perspective I got living outside of the region for so many years, and thanks to my group of friends in Israel; a mixture of burners, peace & political activists who collaborate daily with Palestinians in Israel, Palestine and globally. And thanks to a group of Palestinians who are a part of this group of friends - many key figures in the organisation of protests against the Israeli government in the past 10 years - I know better.

So many people in both these territories are hurting from all the injustice and want to live a different reality.

As an Israeli, I'm experiencing pain like never before.
And with all of this pain, I don’t think more violence is the solution.
People on both sides deserve better and I don't think that neither Hamas nor the Israeli government are offering any of that.

“The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your door, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love, instead, see all of us as one.”
— Bill Hicks

As cliché as it can be, I call everyone around the world, wherever you may be, to stick to your humanity.
More than ever we need kindness and empathy. Compassion and forgiveness.
Put your hand on your heart for a moment, close your eyes and ask yourself: “What would Love do now?”

There are no winners in war, only losers.

“Life is sometimes hard. Things go wrong, in life and in love and in business and in friendship and in health and in all the other ways that life can go wrong. And when things get tough, this is what you should do: Make good art.”
— Neil Gaiman

What’s next? I feel broken. I have no choice but to put my artist hat back on and try to make a living as this emergency unfolds. My family’s business has been dormant since the fighting started and I am the only funnel through which money can flow in and sustain all of us during this time.
Your support is highly appreciated. We kept one of the artworks as an open edition First Come First Serve partly for this purpose.
More than collecting, you may view it as a donation.

The body of work we decided to feature in this curated drop is called 'Hex 000000'.
This work was originally created during a difficult and depressive period of my life.
Out of everything I’ve ever made, I feel like it best expresses the terror I’m experiencing right now through colour and movement.

With that, I hope we can all remember the movement of the hundreds of partygoers who were massacred at the party in Israel as they were dancing in love, as well as the movement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians as they were forced to evacuate their homes in Gaza before the IDF bombs.
The Israeli families who were slaughtered in their homes burnt alive without the ability to move anywhere, and the Gazan civilians who are stuck in a siege, and can't move out of or escape Gaza.
The movement of Judaism forged through exodus, resulting in the establishment of Israel. And the movement of forced exile on Palestinians who had inhabited parts of the land.
The movement of citizens volunteering to help during this crisis on both sides when the governments fail.
And the movement away from fear, hate and trauma towards forgiveness, healing and love.

Thank you for all of your support!
Praying for peace 🙏
Ben Hopper

About Hex 000000
Hex 000000 is work that arrives like a low-bass rumble. Unsettling, enigmatic, and gigantic, these images draw us into overwhelming feelings of despair, shame and depression. Covered in mud, paint and oil, bodies become terrain, skin like cracked dry earth and teeth like stones. Restless hands pick at faces, bodies search for ways to collapse in on themselves and disappear. There is nowhere to hide in these moments of total exposure, yet there is also an unexpected intimacy, inviting us on a journey that traverses different shapes, and characters and acts as its circles obsessively back to its own attempts to capture the undefinable.

THE PHOTOGRAPHS:
'Emmanuelle, Lea & Kate': Edition of 10 - Ranked Auction (24 hrs)
Emmanuelle Lê Phan, Kate Alsterlund and Lea Ved. Montreal, Canada. July 22, 2016
'Self Portrait': Blind Edition - exclusive to existing collectors @ $30
London, UK. Nov 2, 2018
'Arthur': 24hr Open Edition @ $30
Arthur Cadre. Montreal, Canada. July 22, 2016