The Art of Place: Ben Groff is the featured artist in the Center Gallery
Through luminous color and evocative light, Ben Groff captures the landscapes, memories, and emotions that make a place unforgettable
EDMONDS, WA — Step into the vibrant world of Ben Groff, an award-winning painter whose landscapes, travel scenes, and florals capture not just the appearance of a place, but its spirit. Through bold color, dramatic light, and a keen eye for atmosphere, Groff transforms everyday vistas into memorable emotional experiences. This exhibition features a selection of his evocative works.
Groff is widely recognized for paintings that elevate everyday landscapes into emotional experiences. He is an award-winning painter of realist landscapes, travel scenes, and florals. His work has drawn interest for its heightened color and sensitive use of light to evoke both drama and tranquility in the mind of the viewer. His artistic philosophy centers on capturing not only what a place looks like, but how it feels.
“Color is light and light is color,” Groff says. “They are tools to pry open a spiritual level -- the deep and powerful impression the original scene made on me. A good painting should make that same impression on the viewer.”
Originally from Pennsylvania and New York, Groff has deep ties to the Pacific Northwest because The Puget Sound Region is where Ben has lived most of his life. Ben has enjoyed a long career as a nurse at Virginia Mason Hospital. His interests have included hiking, mountaineering, travel, music, photography, art, and literature; he has been a fiction writer with many published stories. He is currently a member-artist at Parklane Gallery in Kirkland, WA, where his work is always on view.
Chosen as the 2026 Poster Artist for the Edmonds Arts Festival, Ben will be featured in the Center Gallery through the end of June.
Groff’s commissioned poster painting , Sunset Over Frances Anderson Center, captures a luminous and iconic Edmonds moment: a sweeping slice of sky view toward Puget Sound framed by the well-worn neighborhood stairs leading up to the Frances Anderson Center, where the Festival has welcomed artists and visitors for generations. The original painting will be available for purchase in the Main Gallery during the Edmonds Arts Festival, June 19-21.
About the Edmonds Arts Festival Foundation
The Edmonds Arts Festival Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to education and the cultural enrichment of the community through the arts. The Foundation awards more than $80,000 annually in scholarships and grants, and over the past 39 years has provided more than $1 million to support public art installations and major special projects. The annual Edmonds Arts Festival, held each June for more than 60 years and produced entirely by community volunteers, is the Foundation’s primary fundraiser and makes its year-round arts programs and initiatives possible. Learn more here.