Damien Bénéteau in his studio, 2015. ©Luxurious Magazine
"My work is intimately related to my background in photography. In this form of minimalist kinetic sculpture, I am using all I know about light to sculpt it." --Luxurious Magazine, September 2015
Damien Bénéteau was born in l'Hay les Roses in 1971. He lives and works in Ivry sur Seine, France. In 1993, after obtaining a BTS (vocational training certificate) in photography, he joined the press agency MPA (specialising in actors' portraits), while also compiling photographic reports on a number of subjects for Yann Kersalé, including the Pont de Normandie and the "Parabola" in Cahors. He photographed the projects of architectural firms: Architecture Studio, Gallois Dudzik Associés and B.A.D.
In 1998, he founded a collective of photographers called "Les Cyclopes" whose work focuses on fashion. Their images have not only been published in France, in Libération, Le Monde, L'Officiel, Art Press and Beaux Arts, but also abroad, in The Sunday Times Style (UK), ID magazine (UK), W (USA) and Visionaire (USA). They participated in several collective exhibitions, including "La Beauté en Avignon" in 2000, "Le Corps Mutant" in the Enrico Navara Gallery, and an exhibition at the FRAC, the regional contemporary art collection of the French Aquitaine Region in 2001. In 2005 they organized their first solo exhibition entitled "C'est des sorcières..." followed in 2008 by "Justifié par le haut."
Damien Bénéteau’s career as a plastic artist started in 2010, when he chose to transpose the process of capturing light in the sculptural genre. The result is a sober and minimalistic plastic work which combines light sculpture, play with textures on the surface of volumes and, frequently, a mechanical and luminary animation which adds dynamism to the perception.