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Artist Exhibitions:
Solo Exhibitions and Selected
Group Exhibitions:
2003 Freedom: Introducing the
Art of Philippe Benichou;
Johnson Art Collection; Los
Angeles, CA (solo)
2003 Selected Guest Artist:
MOCA Museum Of Computer Art;
New York, NY
2001 Benichou: Artiste aux
États Unis; Bruel Suite;
Bellagio Hotel, Las Vegas, NV
(solo)
2000 Philippe Benichou: ...
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Artist Galleries:
Gallery representation:
Philippe Benichou: Mixed Media
& Japanese Inks; Johnson Art
Collection. Los Angeles, CA
Pastel & Mixed Media Works;
World Dome. Fine Art Gallery
St. Thomas, Virgin Islands
Internet Galleries:
Philippe Benichou Online
Gallery;
http://www.philippebenichou.com
Absolute Arts;
http://www.absolutearts.com
Art Online;
http://www.art-online.com/
...
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Artist Reviews:
The art of Philippe Benichou
by Nancy di Benedetto
NY Critic, Juror, Historian
and Lecturer at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Philippe Benichou was born in
French occupied Algeria and
currently lives in Topanga,
CA. He is an internationally
known actor of film, stage and
television and an illustrious
honorary...
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Collections:
Private Collections
Arlette Oger Estate Permanent
Collection, Ste Hermine,
France
Frances & Jill DeBroff, St.
Barts, French Caraîbes
Desirée Wilmes, London,
England
Uta Hagen, New York, NY
Maria Paleru, Chateau de Vaux,
Vaux s/ Eure, France
Patrick Bruel, Paris, France.
Pierre et Michelle Benichou,
Lons le-Saunier, France
Amy ...
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Commissions:
Commissions:
2002 Digital Portraits: Maria
Paleru; Maria Paleru; Vaux sur
Eure, France
2000 Le Petit Prince; St.
Barts International Music
Festival, St. Barts, French
Caraîbes
Awards and Honors:
2003 Best Artist August 2003;
MOCA Museum Of Computer Art,
New York, NY
2003 Selected Guest Artist:
MOCA Museum Of Computer ...
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Artist Statement for Philippe Benichou
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PHILIPPE BENICHOU: ARTIST STATEMENT
I was led to becoming an artist through a spiritual quest that began when I was a child and crystallized in the mid to late nineteen nineties. I never consciously intended to paint. I have always been intensely fascinated by the innermost workings of the universe, both physical and spiritual finding similarities between the vastness of the ever expanding cosmos and freedom of mind. Strange as it seems, I feel like my spirit is in a constant state of creative meditation, free to roam through many other planes and dimensions. My paintings are proofs and accounts of my travels and spiritual reflections. I paint from inner visions and intense emotions, impossible to organize in words, which I let go of instead on canvas. I seem to follow an inner guide, a wisdom or an internal muse that supplies me with tremendous joy and a wonderful feeling of long forgotten peace.
My work is an extension and a clarification of my strongest, clearest and most intimate thinking. I am convinced that what I manifest in physical form as an artist is but a dim reflection of what my spirit is capable of creating. I believe we are only here to create the good and free each other. I trust that we also all play a bigger rather than smaller role in the “great scheme” of life. I see myself as a mystic and understand art as the channeling of a creative realm I now begin to allow. I see the physical realm as a means of communication for higher consciousness and the benefit of all. I am deeply grateful to artists who have exposed their thoughts on life and art. My late mother, Arlette Oger, was a true artist and an art teacher in France. She shared her process with me and will always remain a soaring example. She influenced me greatly.
My work is for the most part expressive: abstract and abstract expressionist with an intense and free use of color and various media to produce unusual textures, shapes, compositions and color coordination. I too believe color has a primitive healing effect provided it contains and aims at harmony. I am interested in surprising dynamics, rhythms and relationships. I create series spontaneously based on techniques and ideas I have been subconsciously developing and refining over the years. Ideas seem to occur naturally as part of the process. Color and line engender shapes that eventually lead me to a harmony of composition which is the ultimate purpose. I don’t lean toward representational work because in my view appearances are not what they seem in essence. My spirit has ways of seeing that my eyes cannot comprehend. I find soothing peace when I escape the world of accepted forms and favor expressing myself freely and openly. Creative imagination and spiritual reflection through the act of painting is the closest I get to formlessness without limits. To work with the un-interpreted and yet engender clarity, freedom and consequently evolution. Painting to me IS thinking in action, profound and on all levels. Living in a political, delicate and sensitive world, I must participate in the process of completely consuming the atmospheres around me in order to process them artistically. My paintings are like books and maps. I “write” so much in them. I journey like a guided vessel through rich internal experiences removed from the psychological babbling of the “real” world.
It took several decades to find the strength and courage to begin expressing myself fully in this medium. I first began doing pastels and then experimented with digital art, later I started to use oils and various other media. Much of my progress happened as a result of working with my good friend, most accomplished artist and well known art educator, Francis Coelho, who has shed much light on my ever developing artistic path. The work I did and continue to express as an actor and an acting teacher has influenced me greatly, so did the atmospheres surrounding my early childhood experiences.
Philippe Benichou
Topanga, California
©2003
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