The paintings and pottery by French artist Bénédicte Peyrat defy common temporal classification attempts. The painting style is lush, in broad brushstrokes, with powerful colors - and in many of her paintings in old-fashioned-looking grisaille shades. Often naked image staff with baroque corpulence and peasantlly, sometimes bawdy facial features romps in allegorical backgrounds in also unlocatable, lush landscapes. In a large series of works a gathering of unknown character heads is created in classic portrait style, however in the manner of old masters and simultaneously amusing with an ironic smile in the features of many the sitters.
In her large size canvasses, together with the wild lush nakedness, various sorts of animals with human body language join the muddle. By also mixing mundane and contemporary, technical objects into her groups of personnel and animals instead of landscape elements, the artist reinforces the sense of out-of-timeness, when familiar scenes assemble in contrary manners and styles and eras intersect.
Bénédicte Peyrat was born in Paris in 1967 and studied at the Académie de Port Royal with Claude Schurr, Jean-Maxime Relange and Jean Marzelle. She lives and works in Karlsruhe. Her works have won many awards, including the Prix de la Oulmont Fondation de France and most recently in 2007 the price of Trustees of the Mannheimer Kunstverein.