Born in France, in Bourg-en-Bresse in 1991, Emilie Benard is a painter, having trained in copying old paintings in the Bella Copia studio in Paris. The passion for painting transmitted by his grandfather nourished his desire to paint since his childhood. This very young 26-year-old artist now combines classical and contemporary art around resilience in the "Resilient Mind" series.
His approach lends itself to the game of reference, that of a 19th century work, Romains de la décadence by Thomas Couture. The classical painter wanted his painting to bring about the renewal of French painting by referring to the masters of ancient Greece, the Renaissance and the Flemish school. Emile Benard in turn offered him a new life. The artist thus comes to symbolically destroy the faces of the characters with a spray, to then come to rebuild them and give them a new life, by giving birth to flowers ,symbol of resilience.
"In front of Emilie Benard’s paintings, the dimension is physical and immediate. The pictorial interlude reveals a tangible strangeness that awakens a feeling of "déjà vu" by taking a completely new measure under an aesthetic of the sublime reconstructed." Caroline Canault
