Ben Bridgers is a North Carolina native who discovered skateboarding in the late 1970’s. By the early 1980s, he was deeply immersed in a subculture often seen as misfit territory. Early skateboard magazines and the like-minded friends he met through skating shaped his creative path, connecting skateboarding to his interest in drawing and design. For Bridgers, skateboarding opened up a whole new world, setting him on a lifelong pursuit that led to studying fine art—painting, sculpture, and art history—while always remembering the outsider spirit that started it all.

After receiving an undergraduate degree in Painting from Barton College (Wilson, NC) in 1995, Bridgers traveled abroad to begin graduate work at The University of Georgia’s campus in Cortona, Italy. He went on to earn an MFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of Georgia’s Lamar Dodd School of Art (Athens, GA) in 1999. 

Bridgers taught studio courses at the University of Georgia from 1996-2002 including a 2001 term at the University’s Studies Abroad Program in Cortona, Italy.  From 2002-2004, Bridgers taught as a Visiting Professor of Art at the University of Wyoming (Laramie) and then went on to teach and lead the Painting and Drawing curriculum at the University of Redlands (Redlands, CA), where he earned tenure as an Associate Professor of Art.

He has maintained an active studio practice for over 30 years and exhibited his work in galleries and museums across the United States. His work is held in collections throughout the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, and Japan.

After spending 20 years bouncing around the country and traveling the world in pursuit of artistic and academic opportunities, he returned to his home state and now works out of a studio in Durham, North Carolina. He never quit skateboarding, paints most days, and is blissfully unconcerned with the art world’s habit of taking itself too seriously.