Ben was born in 1986 and grew up in Barnet, north London. He always has a keen interest in art ever since his grandfather introduced him to the work of John Varley, the renowned 18th Century watercolour artist, as the Varleys are related to the Jeffery family. He first realised he wanted to be an artist in secondary school. A few of his classmates and him used to have bets to see who could draw the best portrait of someone. He really enjoyed going to school and showing them to see their reaction. He painted a portrait of his did for a mock GCSE which got admired by the entire art class. He continued to study Art to degree level. He received a lot of guidance and advice throughout the years but his technique is mostly self-taught. When studying Art at College and University, he was mainly left to his own devices. He was given a subject and asked to come up with a portfolio of work and to develop an idea to a few final images. Teacher's didn't teach him techniques. He always wanted to paint with oils and come up with colourful detailed paintings, this wasn't always well received by tutors, but his classmates were quite impressed with what ben came up with. It was then that Jeffery picked up methods and techniques to get the mark making process he wanted with oil paints.
It's a case of trail and error a lot of the time, trying new ways of controlling the paint, from there his style evolved. A lot of the time painting evolves as he paints it. Ben always has a basic composition in mind but he lets the brush come up with the shapes and chooses colour almost on the spot. Other times Jeffery sees an image in his head and quickly sketches it out. He normally works in two stages: first he paints the entire canvas in base colours. After it has dried, he paints a second layer, adding more and more detail. After he finishes the painting, he leaves it a day or so before look at it again, this helps ben pick up on areas that need changing. His work is fairly diverse, ranging from portraits to landscapes, in both pencil and oils. He loves working with vivid, bright colours to create unique and modern style. He is huge Sci-fi movie fan and loves special effects. There was a time after he finished University when he wanted to be a concept artist for film and video games. Ben tried digital painting and got very good results, but paint just has a depth and feel that can't be beaten. He still searches on the internet for concept artwork and gets lots of inspiration from that type of imagery. Jeffery also gets a lot of inspiration from views around him: his parents house in Herefordshire countryside and one on the Isle of Harris and both have stunning views which constantly give him ideas and inspiration.
