Today we’d like to introduce you to Lloyd Benjamin.
Hi Lloyd, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I was born in 1978 in Little Rock, Arkansas. From an early age, my creative side was nurtured by my parents, both of whom had a deep love for the arts. I was always building or drawing something, a productive byproduct of my boredom and general disdain for school. I started my first band when I was 13 or 14, and we put out a cassette tape and began playing shows. That grew into more bands, more records, and eventually touring the U.S. while I was still in high school. That early taste of independent travel and the energy and community I found in the DIY punk scene set the tone for much of what I’ve done ever since.
I moved to Atlanta around 2003 to pursue both my art and music practices. Early on, I had a few solo exhibitions of my own work that were well received. Those experiences helped me make connections in the local art scene and eventually steered my attention toward opening a gallery of my own. From 2004 to 2014, I ran Get This! Gallery, a space for emerging contemporary artists that quickly became a home for experimentation and conversation. What started as an effort to showcase artists I admired grew into something much larger – a decade-long education in how art lives and interacts with the world at large. Those years taught me a lot about collaboration, risk, and how creative work evolves, whether through the artists I collaborated with or in my own studio practice.
Music has always run parallel to my visual work. Over the years, I’ve played in a number of bands – All Night Drug Prowling Wolves, The Looks, The Stranger Steals, The Divine Hook-up, and more recently Scratch Offs and Uneven Lanes. During the pandemic, I finally had the time to sort through years of unfinished recordings and ideas, which developed into my solo project Uneven Lanes and the record About Time, released on Max Recordings in 2021. What started as an attempt to make sense of a personal music archive evolved into a full band, and we’ve been performing and releasing material ever since.
Travel – whether domestic music tours, freight-train journeys, or extensive international trips with my wife and now children, has always been part of my rhythm. From the age of 19 into my mid-30s, I traveled across the U.S. and Canada by hopping freight trains. That period of movement didn’t just influence my visual art; it enriched my music as well, giving it a narrative depth rooted in the landscapes and stories I encountered along the way. I was drawn to the delicate balance between being in control and surrendering to the chaos.
I’m still based in Atlanta, still dividing my time between visual art and music, and still following the impulses that got me started – making things, moving forward, and seeing where it all leads.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
There have been ups and downs for sure. That’s life.
Most of the things I do professionally are all on me, so whatever troubles or struggles I’m processing, they’re usually caused by me and are up to me to work through. Of course, there are things that life throws at you that are out of your control, but I’ve always tried to take the hit the best I can, process for a bit, and figure out the best path forward. It’s all you can do, right?
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m most proud of finding my way back to being a creative.
I ran my art gallery for ten years and I also owned a high-end handmade framing business for fifteen. A lot of things overlapped professionally, and for a while my own creative practice started to slip away from me. I started to feel bottled up, restless and a little nuts. I needed to focus on making art again. I needed to play songs again, to play music with other people. So, over the course of two to three years, I responsibly wound down those businesses and returned to what I love most.
Over the years, my visual art practice has focused on printmaking, painting, drawing, sculpture, and photography. I’m currently represented by Wolfgang Gallery, located in Atlanta’s Upper Westside.
Are there any books, apps, podcasts or blogs that help you do your best?
I listen to a lot of music and audiobooks while working in the studio. I like to think that the creativity I’m listening to is filtering into my work, steering it in some way or another. I believe creatives feed off each other. Everything and everyone influences something or someone else.
Music I’m listening to at the moment – Sharp Pins, La Lom, Pardoner, Poison Ruin, The Tubs, Minami Deutsch, Kilynn Lunsford.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.lloydbenjamin.com/
- Instagram: lloydbenjamin4
- Other: https://unevenlanes.bandcamp.com/
Image Credits
Black and white music photo – Josh Alexander
Gallery install – Wolfgang Gallery
Sutio headshot – Wolfgang Gallery
