Ink and Solace Poster

'Ben Smith first came to my attention in 2011 when I chanced upon a weird portrait of a miniaturised Nick Cave sitting in the lap of a patriarchal Leonard Cohen. I found it to be a strange and unsettling painting, but fascinating. I sought Ben out and we have since worked together on several portraits. The most recent, painted for the Stranger Than Kindness exhibition at the Royal Danish Library in Copenhagen, depicts an older Nick Cave calmly attending to the creative disorder of the younger Nick Cave. There is a lot of truth in this portrait. Ben called it ‘Ink and Solace.’ It’s a lovely thing.' Nick Cave