Benny Kessler is an illustrator, muralist, and lettering artist based in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
They create hand-lettered designs and illustrations, pulling inspiration from new wave palettes, punky pastiche, midcentury stylings, and anything else they can get their grubby little hands on. Sometimes those illustrations are really big and on a wall, sometimes they are really small and inside a Viewmaster, but more often then not they are of a manageable size for the average human to handle. As of January 2022, they have worked as a graphics artist for Bloomberg Industry Group, creating infographics and lede images for INDG’s three publications.
Thematically they are fascinated by the intersection of witchcraft, history, folklore, and game design. Within those realms, they are specifically drawn to how communities past and present utilize stories of magic and mythology to navigate the human experience, as well as how those narratives come to life through the experience of games and play.
They have a master’s degree in illustration from Maryland Institute College of Art with a former life as a costume designer and theater director at Fordham University’s Theater Program.
And what is Retro Spectacle Studio?
In the early winter of 2020 I began exploring and questioning my gender identity. Understanding that this would be a dynamic process that would likely shift and expand many times over, I wanted to come up with a pseudonymous moniker that could remain constant for my illustration practice as I allowed my personal name, and its associations, to evolve as I needed.
The title itself, “Retro Spectacle,” is a nod to my love of a vintage-inspired aesthetic as well an appreciation for all things spectacular and transcendentally over-the-top. (Pleas note: I embrace vintage style, not vintage values.) It is also a subtle reference to my brief and much-beloved stint as an optician.