Physical and symbolic marriage, my sculptures reveal an invisible truth of the soul of my subjects. Seeing them is listening to your child's heart with your eyes closed.
Born in Marseille, after his studies in Applied Arts, he began a 20-year career as an art director in the most prestigious Parisian advertising agencies. His creative experience of discrepancies is now expressed in sculpture, its true nature, through numbered bronzes. Encouraged by personalities such as Mr. Gérard Depardieu, Mrs. Françoise Fabian or the artist Ben, his work will quickly be crowned by numerous distinctions.
Approach
My bronze works, resolutely surrealist and often animalistic, betray my Italian origins as they are so baroque. These works, symbolist-surrealist, with multiple and allegorical readings, do not forget beauty, life, light, or even time. Before becoming bronzes numbered 1/8, 2/8, etc., the originals are made of plaster. Sculpted and modeled by the artist, the works are then molded and cast in a foundry using the lost wax technique.
Awards
- Gold Medal of the city of Vittel 2018, 35th International Salon of Vittel
- Marcel Edouard Sandoz Foundation Prize 2016, National Animal Artists Exhibition, Bry-sur-Marne
- Taylor Foundation Prize 2014, Salon d'Automne, Paris, Champs-Elysées
- Gold Medal 2014, Ile-de-France Art Fair, Bourg-La-Reine
- Gold Medal 2012, National Animal Artists Exhibition, Bry-sur-Marne
- Special Jury Prize 2012, Salon d’Automne, Paris
- Medal of the General Council of Essonne 2012, 35th Art Fair of Saint-Germain-lès-Corbeil
- Grand Jury Prize 2012, Courtry Fair
- Palme d’Or 2012, World Artists Show, Cannes
- Bronze Medal 2011, Salon of French Artists - Grand Palais
- Grand Jury Prize 2011, Béziers Fine Arts
- Palme d’Or 2011, Salon Art Cannes
- Gold Medal 2011, European Academy of Arts, France
- Gold Medal 2011, Consecration Prize of the National Federation of French Culture
Techniques
Before becoming bronzes numbered 1/8, the originals are made of plaster, iron and wax. In the greatest respect for the rules of art, all these works are created and produced by the artist, then molded and cast in a foundry using the lost wax technique.
Other Speeches
Since the beginning of humanity, sculpture has been one of the privileged witnesses of the history of civilizations. From Africa to the West, the works, sometimes monumental, have always fascinated by the mastery of their authors. Indeed, even more than most plastic arts, sculpture does not forgive the absence of talent and the lack of mastery. It is part of a world today where, since the direct carving of stone or wood, materials and methods multiply without us knowing who does what and how. Modern technological tools are useful, but cannot replace work, learning the effects of shadow and light on the most diverse forms and materials, the play of full and empty spaces, creativity or the magic of breathing a spark of life that a work will offer to share with the public.
In a world of zapping where, for the first time in our history, the younger generation sometimes teaches the older generation, the knowledge and values of sculpture can only be transmitted through experience and practice. The young visitor, who has grown up around the showcase of a contemporary art that is too often speculative, may believe that he does not really have a choice between the great classical masters in museums and the works, as flashy as they are vain and emotionless, put forward by a certain number of galleries trading in a so-called contemporary "art" whose notoriety is based on targeted communication.
In this, I defend an art that does not cheat, that opens the gaze to the magnificent with an approach that mocks fashions and styles. An art that defends mastery, the only one capable of creating works that do not need to have a value manufactured for them, because they represent real riches in themselves.
Universe of Arts Review: Raw Emotion
With his meteoric rise in the world of art, particularly in animal sculpture, he surprises with his virtuosity and arouses all kinds of curiosity, already giving him a palpable and well-deserved reputation.
Thierry Benenati examines the different facets of life in order to inoculate it with an extraordinary dimension, but no less logical, guaranteeing astonishment. Through his coherent reasoning, the work subjugates and enlightens. This designer will know how to embrace the heart of the beast until he makes it his own and extracts its original energy in order to make it visible. Through an ornament of complex grafted machines and taking root in the dark entrails of bronze, he stages not only his lyrical visions, but also the prodigious universal mechanics that move his bestiary. The artist has a sensitivity on the surface of the skin coupled with a fertile imagination and adjusted with a perfect mastery of bronze or steel techniques. These skills favor the translation of his perceptions into impetuous visions, where each careful detail makes them works of remarkable craftsmanship.
Benenati's work intends to go beyond the boundaries of creation and bring the improbable fiction closer to us through additions in keeping with the chosen allegory. "Elephant-Roses", an elephant adorned with roses and standing on one leg, takes itself for a dragonfly. Or like the antediluvian fish "Marseille", a life-size coelacanth, caparisoned with a porthole to resemble a submarine. The withers of a bull will be opened on a series of notched pulleys, highlighting the surprising strength of this magnificent animal. Not to mention a steel rooster boasting a set of watches embedded in its chest, revealing its symbolic and solar side. The connection between the idea and the design is a determination to satisfy one's urge despite the constraints encountered. His voracity to transpose animal, even human, attitudes necessarily involves hard work in a workshop where the craziest ideas and projects pile up to better emerge as judicious intuitions.
Thierry Benenati is thus a dazzling creator as much in life as in the interpretation of his crazy visions, giving birth to singular and unique sculptures which catch the eye and are never forgotten.
Conventions and Projects
Immediacy already resonates with the signing of an agreement between the city of Fontenay-aux-Roses and the artist, thanks to a wonderful meeting with Mr. Mayor Laurent Vastel and DGS Laurent Bernard. It includes, among other things, the design of a monumental work of high quality in front of the Château de La Boissière, which will be produced in the workshop made available to him in the technical center of the town. A city historically attached to sculpture, Fontenay-aux-Roses and its municipal team have been leading a vast project to renovate public spaces since 2014, accompanied by a genuine desire to democratize art. A park in the city center dedicated to its sculptors is underway.
