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Benjamin Deguenon (1982) creates sculptures, paintings, drawings and installations in his own unique primitive style, reminiscent of Basquiat and Miró, revealing an associative imagery full of stories.
“I am fascinated by relationships in life, how everything is connected and how actions and reactions shape the world we live in.
We can act as victims or prisoners of circumstances or we can start a dialogue
to create mutual awareness
and understanding,
reach out beyond our own personal interest to reshape a better future”
Benjamin Deguenon (1982) is an autodidact artist from Benin, who received his artistic formation through his 5-year apprenticeship with the well recognized Beninese artist Dominic Zinkpé and various other trainings through ESMA and international residencies.
His world is populated with extravagant creatures with beaks, claws, talons, tails, straight out of the flute of an urban Pan, chimeras stemming from a personal mythology which he removes from the street, from the city, from life. Quartered without disenchantment between before and now, it draws as one spreads its wings, from above, sweeping the landscape from the heights to get an overview. In his sculptures and installations, Deguenon recuperates and recovers from everyday life to sew up his investigations, from his childhood to invent an urban mythology. Not only recovers materials, techniques, the idea of communion between man and nature, he recovers his anxieties from the intimate to deliver those of others, in fact a pantheon of unrealities, in wood, adorned with iron, adorned with fabrics, installations-exorcisms that expose him.
His beautiful energy, the projection of a fury to exist in a mutant society where the sacred withers away where individuals get lost, is channeled into the drawings that extend his approach on a more fragile medium, with more sensitive tools. In his latest series of paintings, Deguenon cuts back to a minimalistic colour palette, enforcing the power of his imagary.
Deguenon has participated in many group and solo exhibitions in Benin, Senegal, Togo and France. His works can be found in several international collections and publications on Beninese art.
Solo exhibition, l’Espace culturelle Le Parking, Cotonou, Benin
“The World = Dialogue” at OpenArtExchange, Schiedam (Rotterdam region), Netherlands
Exposition personnel à la Galerie Alain DETTINGER, France
Audience / Institut français – Cotonou, Benin
Irréalités / Galerie R9 – Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye, France
Scénographie du spectacle Nuit de Parole, de Patrice Toton / Institut français – Cotonou, Benin
Fenêtres / Galerie Farafina – Cotonou, Benin
FInAB Tokp’Art fair (Cotonou/Benin), represented by OpenArtExchange
C’est Benin en Majesté, Galerie Valoise – La librairue aux 4 vents, Dak’Art Biennale – OFF Dakar, Senegal
ART The Hague (The Netherlands), represented by OpenArtExchange
Nachtbrötchen Amsterdam (The Netherlands), represented by OpenArtExchange
AKAA Paris, represented by OpenArtExchange, Netherlands
Exposition collective, Galerie Vallois, Paris, France
Exposition collective Au Salon du Livre Rare et de l’Objet d’Art à Paris (represented by Galerie Vallois)
Vente au Enchère à La Maison Good Représenter par Versant Sud
Exposition collectif du SPECIAL COVID-19 BOULEV’ART CHANTIER CREATIF au Centre Culturel Français- Cotonou
Exposition collectif du SPECIAL COVID-19 BOULEV’ART au carrefour Ste Cécile Cotonou
Exposition avec de la Galerie Vallois « LA OU L’ÂME SE PLAÎT » au FOYER DU CARROUSEL DU LOUVRE
Exposition AFRIQUE au Château de Tanlay avec la galerie Vallois (Les impromptus du Bénin)
Exposition collective « PANORAMA » au centre lobozounkpa
Parcours des mondes Galerie VALLOIS (Les ASEN Art du Bénin)
Exposition collective d’art contemporain « THE WEEK » organisé à la Maison rouge par HBMC
Jouets et fétiches » à la Galerie Mathilde hatzenberger gallery Bruxelles/Belgique
Exposition à la Galerie Vallois « Cotonou Paris Cotonou »
Exposition collectives avec la galerie vallois « Ma Pas Ta » à la villa Arson / Nice
Exposition à la FOIRE St’ART à Strasbourg par la galerie Mathilde hatzenberger gallery
Exposition ART PARIS ART FAIR avec la galerie Vallois
Exposition collective esclavage moderne à l’UNESCO Paris avec la galerie vallois
Exposition esclavage moderne galerie VALLOIS Paris
Exposition interférences à la galerie L’UAP rue de Fontenelle à Rouen
OpenArtExchange gallery – Schiedam (Rotterdam region), Nederland
Galerie Valois – Paris, France
Ateliers des artistes – Rouen, Frankrijk
L’un dans l’autre (Ateliers de Belleville) – Paris, Frankrijk
UNIK – Abomey, Benin
Village des Arts, Dak’Art Off – Dakar, Senegal
OpenArtExchange is an independent international art gallery that aims to stimulate and connect promising contemporary visual artists from non-Western countries (particularly Africa, South America and Asia) with the western world of arts and culture.
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