Christophe Beraet's paintings are characterized by a distinctive combination of figurative imagery and surrealist abstraction.
His enigmatic compositions use an eccentric iconography of hybrid human characters (often androgynous), in dreamlike settings blocked by walls and doors that frame the composition.
Although each work is begun without any preconceived idea of the final result, there is a unique visual coherence that is recognizable throughout the work.
Paintings often display strong colour palettes, and recurring subjects include the seamless integration of organic and inorganic elements as well as references to the creative process and calligraphy.
Christophe Beraet comes out of two families uprooted and torn by the Second World War. He was born in 1968 in Nice and lives in Vence. He paints, engraves, occasionally sculpts and writes poetry. He has been drawing since childhood and has been designing since the age of thirty. As a young boy, Christophe collected postage stamps illustrated with paintings, sculptures and tapestries. Fascinated by this richness of colours and shapes, he plays with drawing them larger with his great-grandmother's ink and crayons.
At the age of twenty-six, he decided to move to Africa, the meet with African art would be important and this experience would mark him forever and give rise to the desire to make masks (cf. Mask Heads).
In 2003, he met Ling Hsu, a Chinese calligrapher based in Nice, with whom he perfected his skills in the way of Chinese painting. It is from this period that he will definitely keep the fluidity of the material on the canvas as well as an exceptional calligraphic dexterity that can be found in his handwritten poems.
His pictorial artistic influences are largely linked to 20th century European painting: fauvism, surrealism, German Neuen Wilden and neo-expressionism.
Artists (all European) such as Bacon, Schiele, Baselitz, Mossa, Kirchner, Giacometti, Chagall, Kokoschka, Modigliani or Hundertwasser probably led Christophe to a singular reflection towards a striking visceral painting. By disrupting the codes of conventional painting, these great visionary masters developed in him the desire to imitate the duplication of organic and psychic life.
Nevertheless, Christophe is rather located in a typical alternative art of the 21st century, in the same way as ecology. It is more connected with alternative world culture than the world of gallery owners and the art "market". His creations are not originally intended for sale. It allows him to build himself as he builds his art. For example, in these creations he often deals with gender identity and what prevents us from being ourselves. To be attentive to your body, to the necessary work on the wounds that life can impose on you. This corresponds well to the development we have seen in the world over the past few decades: of a new alternative culture in opposition to the old and dominant culture.
After his first ten years of solitary activity, he met the painter-lighter Christian Geai with whom he was introduced to the painting Trompe l'oeil and the Mural Fresco. He will learn with him the ancient pictorial techniques in his studio in Nice (2009-2010). From this traditional apprenticeship, in 2005 he made a brief 4-month internship at the MAMAC contemporary art workshop. He will only retain from this experience Yves Klein's "anthropometries", which will give him the idea of an introspective pictorial work in a sensitive face-to-face encounter with his own body. (see "Body-Bed-Door" catalogue).
This will lead ten years later to a process of hybridization of his body imprint with the entities "Ange_drogynes, towards a body utopia.
Christophe has regularly participated in exhibitions in France and abroad (Paris, Berlin, Potsdam, Osaka, Milan, Monaco).
Winner of several awards and present in private collections in the United Kingdom, Germany and France, he is often noticed for his unique paintings.
It is appreciated by the former and famous Parisian gallery owner Mrs. Cérès Franco ("l'oeil de boeuf"), who has been part of one of the most important collections of Brut and singular art in Europe. She selects five large drawings from the "Corps-Lit-Porte" series which are now part of her exceptional collection saved at the "Coopérative-Cérès Franco" in Montolieu (southwest France).
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator
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MDA (Maison des Artistes) : BA44202
- 2018 Member of the Société des Artistes Français, Paris / Bronze medal 2015 (painting section)
- 2018 Nicolas Cizeron Prize (awarded to a French expressionist artist)
- 2015 Aiap-Unesco-Monaco Jury Prize
- 2015 Painting Prize of the Monegasque National Commission, Monaco
- 2011-2015 Free auditor (Engraving, Ceramics, Contemporary drawing, Art history) at Municipal School of Plastic Arts-Villa Thiole, Nice.
- 2009-2010 Atelier Artdec - Christian Geai, Nice. Mural and Mural Fresco.
- 2005 Assistant at the art workshop of the MAMAC (Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art) of Nice.
- 1984-1986 École des Métiers d'Arts - Complete curriculum (3 years), Tapestry, Furniture and Sewing
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ART CRITICS
"Poet, he is best known for his unclassifiable, lively, complex and tumultuous painting, the most significant of his work is undoubtedly this libidinal propensity of the masculine/feminine, which is found even in his colours. His paintings weave a direct communion with the spirit."
JC Guerro
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"The twin brother", "soul mates", "the substitute", "the alchemical wedding", all evocative titles for canvases offering to see Angel-Drogynes in pairs. Alter ego? Partners? Clones? The theme of the double, in the sense of a twinning, returns as a leitmotiv in this series, questioning, among other things, the limit of the body envelope as well as that of individuality. Who are these polymorphic characters? Are they connected? Interdependent? Autonomous? Partial? Are they all these at the same time?
For more complexity, these fragmented, whole, sometimes fused or multiplied bodies that juxtapose, overlap, mask, blend, play with each other in a sometimes noisy confusion; they are joined by quasi-organic elements, similar to uterus, placentas, umbilical cords.
"It's a birth that's constantly renewed," says Chris Beraet about his creative process. Thus, the atypical plasticity of her works is an act of birth of the pictorial process itself, like a gush of life, never frozen, unceasingly becoming.
Kantor Plum
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When contemplating his works, we rush into the artist's intimacy, we invite ourselves into his space, but we tell ourselves that there is a little of me, a little of us too. His paintings, sometimes terrifying, are softened by a colour, a line. It shows us our contradictions but more precisely our cracks, our wounds. [...]
François Birembaux
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator
His enigmatic compositions use an eccentric iconography of hybrid human characters (often androgynous), in dreamlike settings blocked by walls and doors that frame the composition.
Although each work is begun without any preconceived idea of the final result, there is a unique visual coherence that is recognizable throughout the work.
Paintings often display strong colour palettes, and recurring subjects include the seamless integration of organic and inorganic elements as well as references to the creative process and calligraphy.
Christophe Beraet comes out of two families uprooted and torn by the Second World War. He was born in 1968 in Nice and lives in Vence. He paints, engraves, occasionally sculpts and writes poetry. He has been drawing since childhood and has been designing since the age of thirty. As a young boy, Christophe collected postage stamps illustrated with paintings, sculptures and tapestries. Fascinated by this richness of colours and shapes, he plays with drawing them larger with his great-grandmother's ink and crayons.
At the age of twenty-six, he decided to move to Africa, the meet with African art would be important and this experience would mark him forever and give rise to the desire to make masks (cf. Mask Heads).
In 2003, he met Ling Hsu, a Chinese calligrapher based in Nice, with whom he perfected his skills in the way of Chinese painting. It is from this period that he will definitely keep the fluidity of the material on the canvas as well as an exceptional calligraphic dexterity that can be found in his handwritten poems.
His pictorial artistic influences are largely linked to 20th century European painting: fauvism, surrealism, German Neuen Wilden and neo-expressionism.
Artists (all European) such as Bacon, Schiele, Baselitz, Mossa, Kirchner, Giacometti, Chagall, Kokoschka, Modigliani or Hundertwasser probably led Christophe to a singular reflection towards a striking visceral painting. By disrupting the codes of conventional painting, these great visionary masters developed in him the desire to imitate the duplication of organic and psychic life.
Nevertheless, Christophe is rather located in a typical alternative art of the 21st century, in the same way as ecology. It is more connected with alternative world culture than the world of gallery owners and the art "market". His creations are not originally intended for sale. It allows him to build himself as he builds his art. For example, in these creations he often deals with gender identity and what prevents us from being ourselves. To be attentive to your body, to the necessary work on the wounds that life can impose on you. This corresponds well to the development we have seen in the world over the past few decades: of a new alternative culture in opposition to the old and dominant culture.
After his first ten years of solitary activity, he met the painter-lighter Christian Geai with whom he was introduced to the painting Trompe l'oeil and the Mural Fresco. He will learn with him the ancient pictorial techniques in his studio in Nice (2009-2010). From this traditional apprenticeship, in 2005 he made a brief 4-month internship at the MAMAC contemporary art workshop. He will only retain from this experience Yves Klein's "anthropometries", which will give him the idea of an introspective pictorial work in a sensitive face-to-face encounter with his own body. (see "Body-Bed-Door" catalogue).
This will lead ten years later to a process of hybridization of his body imprint with the entities "Ange_drogynes, towards a body utopia.
Christophe has regularly participated in exhibitions in France and abroad (Paris, Berlin, Potsdam, Osaka, Milan, Monaco).
Winner of several awards and present in private collections in the United Kingdom, Germany and France, he is often noticed for his unique paintings.
It is appreciated by the former and famous Parisian gallery owner Mrs. Cérès Franco ("l'oeil de boeuf"), who has been part of one of the most important collections of Brut and singular art in Europe. She selects five large drawings from the "Corps-Lit-Porte" series which are now part of her exceptional collection saved at the "Coopérative-Cérès Franco" in Montolieu (southwest France).
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator
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MDA (Maison des Artistes) : BA44202
- 2018 Member of the Société des Artistes Français, Paris / Bronze medal 2015 (painting section)
- 2018 Nicolas Cizeron Prize (awarded to a French expressionist artist)
- 2015 Aiap-Unesco-Monaco Jury Prize
- 2015 Painting Prize of the Monegasque National Commission, Monaco
- 2011-2015 Free auditor (Engraving, Ceramics, Contemporary drawing, Art history) at Municipal School of Plastic Arts-Villa Thiole, Nice.
- 2009-2010 Atelier Artdec - Christian Geai, Nice. Mural and Mural Fresco.
- 2005 Assistant at the art workshop of the MAMAC (Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art) of Nice.
- 1984-1986 École des Métiers d'Arts - Complete curriculum (3 years), Tapestry, Furniture and Sewing
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
ART CRITICS
"Poet, he is best known for his unclassifiable, lively, complex and tumultuous painting, the most significant of his work is undoubtedly this libidinal propensity of the masculine/feminine, which is found even in his colours. His paintings weave a direct communion with the spirit."
JC Guerro
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
"The twin brother", "soul mates", "the substitute", "the alchemical wedding", all evocative titles for canvases offering to see Angel-Drogynes in pairs. Alter ego? Partners? Clones? The theme of the double, in the sense of a twinning, returns as a leitmotiv in this series, questioning, among other things, the limit of the body envelope as well as that of individuality. Who are these polymorphic characters? Are they connected? Interdependent? Autonomous? Partial? Are they all these at the same time?
For more complexity, these fragmented, whole, sometimes fused or multiplied bodies that juxtapose, overlap, mask, blend, play with each other in a sometimes noisy confusion; they are joined by quasi-organic elements, similar to uterus, placentas, umbilical cords.
"It's a birth that's constantly renewed," says Chris Beraet about his creative process. Thus, the atypical plasticity of her works is an act of birth of the pictorial process itself, like a gush of life, never frozen, unceasingly becoming.
Kantor Plum
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
When contemplating his works, we rush into the artist's intimacy, we invite ourselves into his space, but we tell ourselves that there is a little of me, a little of us too. His paintings, sometimes terrifying, are softened by a colour, a line. It shows us our contradictions but more precisely our cracks, our wounds. [...]
François Birembaux
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator