BIOGRAPHY
Painter and sculptor, born in Granville (50) France on 1968.04.14
In 1988 he made his first sculpture exhibition in a figurative and contemporary style in subjects as diverse as clay, plaster, concrete, steel and polymers.
His first exhibition of oil paintings in 1990 dealt with women's issues, of man, of the world in its design and implementation.
For two years from 1994 to 1996 he deepened sculpture, figurative painter sculptor with PAPYO. At the same time, he met the painter GIGER when exposed to Chavanes, Nyon (Switzerland) which gives him a strong interest in macabre art.
In 1998 he met the painter ARCHIGUILLE, he allows him access to the transfiguration where he will be able to follow a personal process that will result in charge of emotions, expression of tumult and profound rebirth.
EXHIBITIONS
2015
- Affordable Art Fair Brussels with gallery 3 Cherries ....., Belgium
- Art Up Lille with gallery 3 Cherries, France
- Arts3f Lyon with gallery 3 Cherries, France
- Arts3f Nantes with the Orange Cobalt gallery, France
- Affordable Art Fair Maastrich with Orange Cobalt Gallery, Netherlands
- Affordable Art Fair Hampstead with Orange Cobalt Gallery, UK
- Arts3f Paris with Orange Cobalt Gallery, France
- Arts3 Bordeaux with Gallery 3 Cherries, France
- Art Shopping Paris with Galerie 3 Cerises, France
- Affordable Art Fair - Amsterdam with Orange Cobalt Gallery, Netherlands
- St. Art Strasbourg with Orange Cobalt Gallery, France
2016
- Art Up Lille with Orange Cobalt Gallery, France
- Art3F Paris with Orange Cobalt Gallery, France
- Kölner List with Orange Cobalt Gallery, Germany
- Collective at the Beauty Gallery of the Morning Calm, Paris,
London, New York, Seoul
- Affordable Art Made Amsterdam with Orange Cobalt Gallery, Netherlands
- ST ART Strasbourg with the Orange Cobalt gallery, France
- Art Shopping Cannes, France
- Decor of the show "Tea or Coffee" on France 2
released on October 22, 2016, France
2017
- The Project Room with Bruno Massa Gallery, New York, USA
- Tokyo Art Fair with Bruno Massa Gallery, Japan
- Solo at François Fontaine Gallery, Satigny (Geneva), Switzerland
- Art Shopping Carrousel du Louvre, Paris, France
- We can control space with B. Massa Gallery, New York, USA
- Autumn Salon, Paris, France
PRIZES RECEIVED
- FNCF / Gold Medal for the Blues / Roquebrune sur Argens
- Artistic Merit Award / Collezionista Gallery II, Rome
- FNCF / Medal of Honor / Salon des Léopards, St. Tropez
- FNCF / Gold canvas for the year 2005
- Listed Akoun 2004
- Listed I-CAC 2017
- Listed Cambridge Art 2014
- Artistic tribute received from Roland CAT in 2011
- Artistic Criticism of Cambridge Art in 2014
- Member of the European Institute of Contemporary Arts in 2015 and silver medal in 2016
CRITIQUE
Born in 1968 in Normandy, France, F B-L left his home town many years ago. Was it his mother, herself an artist, who influenced his career path ? However that may be, there is no doubt that his artistic calling can be traced a long way back.
When he started out his work was figurative in style but bit by bit it became abstract with strong contrasts in which black is the most powerful element.
Painting the colour black is really something out of the ordinary and is full of paradoxes.
His mind is filled with black. Dreaming of black is to dream of absence, absence of colour and of light. The great « dreamers in black », the phrase comes from Gaston Richard, are those whose imagination endeavours to reach the most intimate corners of the soul in a kind of complete and utter darkness, deep down in the subconscience and which cannot be affected by any formal artistic discipline whatsoever.
The contrast of black and white is immediately one way of working with light, for the clash of white against black will make the latter more radiant. Black was used sparingly for several hundreds of years, and was not included in the accepted colour spectrum. It was only re-established as a colour in the twentieth century, thanks to a few artists such as François Benoit-Lison and Pierre Soulages.
Black loses its role as a colour when used on its own and becomes a framework of mirror-like reflections as can be discovered in the work of F Benoit-Lison.
With his great intellectual cast of mind, F. B-L cuts out conventional thinking from his work, repels extraneous influences, and avoids all the utopias which might come between him and his creativity.
Sometimes working in oils but mainly using tar-based substances, the layering has quite mysterious halo effects, dazzling in their precision which are, to say the least, out of reach of the uninitiated.
A painting depends on the canvas, wood and other materials used, be they smooth or rough, but also on the pigment, the thickness and how the materials are shaped and moulded, on the surrounding colours as well, and on the way the brushed surface reflects the light. For all that, black, whether perceived or imagined, depends on the eye of the beholder and its variations are endless.
François open-handedly invites us to travel with him without giving us a set path to follow. Each of us will search for his own truth in the hope of not getting lost along the way. We delve into an imaginary world which is sometimes high-flown, sometimes intimate, in which the painting expresses something words alone find difficult. There are so many successful touches that cannot fail to capture the interest of a growing number of art lovers.
François Benoit -Lison offers us some outstanding work. We are at the start of an artistic adventure which will surely have some pleasant surprises for us.
Bernard BOSCHER
Art-critic C.E.
Read less