Ben Zank (American, b. 1991) is a photographer known for staging himself as the main character in surreal, often faceless self-portraits. Working with simple props such as yellow tape and a recurring motif of straight lines, he bends reality within ordinary settings into scenes he describes as “Bizarre Surrealism”, exploring loneliness and what he calls comfort in chaos.
Zank was born in the Bronx and raised in New York City, where he remains based. He studied journalism but found a more direct means of expression at eighteen, after he discovered a Pentax ME Super camera in his grandmother's attic. Working under a self-imposed discipline of one photograph a day, he most often casts himself as the subject, favouring faceless figures because, in his words, “removing that element takes away a level of distraction”.
