Bénédicte Klène (English)

As long as I remember, drawing has always been part of my life and of my work. Drawing helps me to breath.
I was born in 1957 on the other side of the Mediteranean Sea under the premonitory sign of flows, migrations, trips and travels. It left a long indelible mark in my artwork.

I studied Art in Aix-en-Provence, then in Rennes. After graduation, I taught with great passion and pleasure during several years. I devote all my time to my artwork since 2011. Now, I live in Rennes, in Brittany since a long time and I enjoy going to work where the breath of drawing ON LOCATION carries me …

I am a Visual Artist and a “Chroni-croqueuse”. I define myself as a columnist of the short-lived : I would like to make links and to tie knots between drawing and immediate, graphic report and documentary investigation.

Paper and Drawing are always in the heart of my creative process. I fill my sketchbooks according to very simple rules : to draw on location, capturing what I see from direct observation, simply and directly with a sepia India ink, and sketching the little things of the life which are in direct line of our sight.

LITTLE THINGS Serie is drawed on skecthbooks which remained secret for a long time. PANORAMAS Serie does encourage experience of look which examine our relation to the memory, the time, the travel, the world and the landscape.

My artwok aims to be open and takes many form (drawing, small edition, artist’s books, multiple, painting, installation, performance). I do think that Art has to pull an hyphen with the World. Drawing is a fantastic way to go towards the Other One and towards Somewhere Else.

2016 /  Aralya Edition’s Price – Monteoliveto Gallery
2017 / Lorient City Price- Small Size Exhibition – Société Lorientaise des Beaux Arts (SLBA)

My work has been the subject of numerous exhibitions in France, Belgium, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom, USA and public acquisitions (Auray and Rennes’s cities, Archives and City of Lorient, 1 % for the City hHall of Europe of Brest, state commission of the CNAP for the media library of Renac, Departmental Media library of Ille-et-Vilaine).