Henri-Marc Benoit

Biography

Henri-Marc BENOIT is a French painter born in 1982. Originally from Haute-Loire, he now lives and works in Paris. In 2005, he graduated in Interior Architecture from ESAG Penninghen. This training, focused on space, light, and color, deeply informs his artistic practice.

From his high school years, he began exploring silhouettes and shadows — elements that have since become central to his work. Influenced by his grandfather’s watercolors, the shifting light of his childhood home, and the visual worlds of Max Neumann and Richard Hambleton, he has developed a distinctive artistic language in which the human figure is more evoked than depicted.

Henri-Marc BENOIT works primarily with oil and watercolor. His figurative expressionist approach revolves around fragmented figures, layered silhouettes, and hybrid or fading bodies. Shadow — ever-present, yet often overlooked — becomes, in his work, a symbol of identity, a memory in reverse, and a space of projection.

His portraits are chimeras: elusive forms, fragments of selfhood, emotional traces. They explore presence and absence, and what remains of us in the gaze of another.

Henri-Marc BENOIT regularly exhibits his work, offers original paintings for sale, and accepts custom commissions.

Influences

Max Neuman, Joachim Bandau, Richard Hambleton

Education

The artist at work