Louis Buhl & Co. is pleased to present a solo exhibition with Detroit-based artist James Benjamin Franklin, titled XX and opening October 24, 2026. For his first show with the gallery, Franklin presents a body of work that leverages paper’s unique ability to act as an adaptable site for material experimentation.
Like his large-scale paintings, Franklin’s process on paper is largely improvised and intuitive. Rather than working toward a predetermined image, he follows gesture, texture, and instinct, allowing each piece to develop through a rapid process of discovery where uncertainty remains a driving force. Because paper feels inherently less precious at the onset, however, it allows Franklin to move quickly and with greater freedom, using materials that feel less precious than those associated with painting.
This sense of immediacy fosters a level of risk and experimentation difficult to achieve on canvas, balanced by a distinct control inherent to working at a smaller scale. While the modest dimensions engage less of Franklin’s full body—eliminating the physical variables of his larger canvases—they allow Franklin to work with greater velocity, twisting and turning the substrate as he reacts in real time to the shifting pigment. Such speed and physical control yield entirely new marks and textures difficult unattainable on a larger scale, introducing an agile vocabulary of line and surface.
The novel marks generated through this swift, tactile process prompt new questions for the artist, inspiring ideas for his paintings, and establishing a generative dialogue where both bodies of work continuously shape each other. Although works on paper have appeared throughout Franklin’s exhibitions in the past, XX brings this critical dimension of his practice into full focus for the first time. The pieces should not be interpreted as studies or preparatory works, but rather as fully realized works in their own right.
Unintentionally, the sensibility of Southern California, where the artist grew up, also finds its way into the body of work. Franklin’s attention to texture, atmosphere, and landscape echoes the environment around him—the mountains, desert, and ocean—without direct depiction. These environments emerge through the physical surfaces, rapid gestures, and shifting textures of the paper, operating as an intuitive undercurrent throughout his process.
James Benjamin Franklin: XX is on view from October 24, 2026 through January 7, 2027 at Louis Buhl & Co.