Gilles Benistri

Gilles Benistri's oeuvre was hallmarked first of all by a fleshy, doughy, textured kind of painting. A mineral paint which, with a certain form of violence, seemed to freeze disconnected faces and awkward bodies. As his work has advanced, so representation seems to have got the upper hand, and as the space of the canvas becomes more and more removed from the thickness of the touch, so it has gradually changed into a setting for scenes in which figures move about in a more or less natural way. Gilles Benistri presents us with a painting which mixes incongruousness with the domestic, and strangeness with the familiar. It involves cramped bodies in traditional costumes. These characters are usually faceless, with no identity, thus bearing the attributes of the standard.