Painting No. 45B – Title “The Death of Our Son Ben” Jan/June 2010
Acrylic on Canvas
91cms Length x 91cms Wide x 3cms Deep
Painting Story: Our son Ben was killed on the 5/11/09 in a single vehicle crash. Ben had just finished a 7 day shift at the Fosterville Gold Mines in Bendigo (Victoria, Australia) and was out with his Crew 3 work colleagues at their local drinking haunt. At approximately 1pm Thursday morning they headed off from the bar to home. Ben was able to get a Taxi but his boss was not able to get one. His boss said for Ben to take the Taxi and he would start walking home. Ben reached home and being concerned about his boss walking home decided to get into his car and go and pick up his boss and drive him home. This was a fatal decision Ben made. After picking up his boss, and getting him home safely, Ben headed back home via the road back to his work. This road was out through bush and farm land and kangaroo territory. At approximately 1.30am Ben traveling at approximately 140 kilometres and over 0.08 BAC (Blood Alcohol Concentration), hit a kangaroo. Ben lost control of his car and at high speed collided into two trees set on the side of the road. Ben was killed instantly. It was not until approximately 5am that Ben was discovered dead by one of Fosterville Gold Mine People. Ben made a terrible decision to get into his car that night but for a good reason to ensure his boss got home safely. When we went up to see where Ben had his crash it was incredibly emotional, distressing and heart breaking. The decision to do a painting of Ben’s crash was all about trying to communicate to all young people about drinking and driving and how in just one split second, a life can be taken. That a young life taken is such a tragedy and that so many other people’s lives are deeply affected and changed forever as well for this loss…
This painting shows the split second of our son Ben’s death. The impact of his car of silver and crimson into the trees, the shattering of his car and his life. The road though what is very beautiful county Victoria (Australia), a strange contrast to the tragedy we were all facing! The blue in the crash is our boy’s sole, the gold is our treasured son and the blue triangles are his sole reaching for the night heavens. There is the road stretching into the distance and the gum trees in the bush fields.
Abstract Artist: Karen Robinson
NB: All images are protected by copyright laws!
ido art karen robinson 
wonderful painting. Such a sad story. I am sorry for your loss.
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Thank you, Andy.
It has been 10 years now since the death of our son. As you would have noticed, the painting was created some years ago now during a time when we were experiencing great sadness and grief. Over the years I have been working as a facilitator running Road Trauma Awareness sessions for road traffic offender participants to help them be safer, more responsible road users, in the hope they will never become Ben, never be their family’s road trauma story. It has helped much… These days I do a lot of photography and recently working of putting together a fine art collection of photographs in the hope of being able to exhibit sometime within the near future. So life is good when we work hard at it and I feel fortunate when compared with others. The loss of Ben is always with me though…
warm regards Karen
(Sorry for the ramble – close to Christmas time of the year where we think about him much…)
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