FRANCE
Jean-Paul Soujol Benedetti is an artist whose photography captures a deep connection to aesthetics, pure forms, and minimalist philosophy. Although he started his photographic journey later in life, his passion for nature, light, and contemporary painting has guided him in creating works that captivate with their simplicity while showcasing a complex play of lines, colors, and forms. Through meticulously balanced compositions and technical precision, Jean-Paul Soujol Benedetti explores the space between the real and the imaginary, the natural and the synthetic, offering a unique vision of the world through his lens.
Your photographic career is deeply inspired by contemporary painting. Can you tell us how you began your journey into the world of photography and what initially drew your attention to minimalism?
I started photography late, at the age of 51. It was the beauty of nature and its light that inspired me to pursue photography. So I started with landscape photography. I was attracted to low lights, those that are well before sunrise or after sunset; the evening lights.I felt a profound urge to capture landscapes differently, employing light and composition to accentuate unique features that invite the viewer to experience familiar landscapes in a new and thought-provoking way. I had a lot of positive feedback during local exhibitions from people who were surprised and admiring of what I presented. They discovered another landscape through my photographs. This was very motivating and encouraging for me. This period lasted a few years, going through night photography (Milky Way, star trails) and infrared (experimental). Then I needed to move on to something else. The revelation was the discovery of the square format. It really changed my way of photographing. I immediately understood that with this format I was going to bounce back to another photographic style. My passion for pure forms, aesthetics and simplicity in contemporary art made minimalism a natural choice. I truly enjoyed this phase, as it challenged me to become more creative.
I had to change my way of photographing, of composing. I had to think square and not just do a square crop of an image. I had found the format that suited me and my new photographic style but I had to look for a new technique that would fit perfectly with this change. For this, I chose the long exposure technique. It was also a great revelation with the discovery of ND (Neutral Density) filters. Since then, this duo has been part of my work, and I combine it with different techniques such as ICM (Intentional Camera Movement). For me, minimalism is a creative challenge. It pushes me to go for the essential. It's exciting to extract the quintessence of a few elements from a whole that the eye can see. It may seem simple and easy when you look at an image, but the reality is different and that's what challenges and motivates me.
Espace Inaugural Contemporary
Your works often use blue color and the horizon as key elements. How have the influences of artists like Pierre Soulages, Mark Rothko, and Yves Klein shaped your artistic vision?
Blue has always been my favorite color. Blue is life! Blue influences our inner joy; it brings pleasure and happiness. Look at a gray sky and a blue sky, we do not have the same feeling. The horizon is a pure and infinite line that separates two elements. So I chose the sea and its horizon as a new guideline for my minimalist projects with a search for purity and aesthetics. Discovering the three great artists you mentioned allowed me to delve deeper into my artistic research and my exploration of color. Yves Klein's monochromes and his Bleu (IKB) influenced me in some of the monochrome creations you can see in the "Espace Inaugural" portfolio. I was also very attracted by Mark Rothko's abstract compositions, such as "Rust and Blue", "Blue divided by blue" and "Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose", which can also be seen in "Espace Inaugural". Despite these influences, "Espace Inaugural" remains a very personal work. I discovered Pierre Soulages and his "Outrenoir" at the Fabre museum in Montpellier (France), they seduced me to the very depths of my being. The desire came over me to work with black in photography as another color and to associate it with blue. This is what can be seen in the portfolios “Contemporary”, “Le Bleu dans le Noir”, but also in the photographs “Black Matter”, “Between Real and Unreal”. I think it's difficult to get the quintessence of black in photography. It requires great rigour in exposure combined with subtle lighting that sculpts the structure of the black. For me, it's a real challenge because you quickly lose its matter. The interplay of black and blue serves as a profound source of inspiration, enabling me to explore abstraction and create contemporary works.
The 'URSULA' series represents an innovative approach by placing a store mannequin in various situations. What inspired this series, and what is the conceptual aim behind it?
For some time, I had tried to incorporate plastic elements into my minimalist landscape photography. I wanted to add something synthetic to the natural. I like abstraction for its timeless side, but it wasn't enough to satisfy my creativity. I needed something else to complement it, to add a new element, an enigma. So I turned to the conceptual. It allows me to extend my creativity into another world, that of the enigmatic imagination. "When the idea becomes an image" is now my new concept. Intellectualize the idea in order to transform it into creation. Initially, I looked for blue plastic pebbles that I wanted to place on a black sand beach. When I couldn't find what I was looking for, I came up with the idea of using chicken feet. The series is called “Chicken Paradise”.
The aim was to work on two opposing themes. On the one hand, elegance and, on the other, vulgarity in very flashy colors. After this series produced at the end of 2021, beginning of 2022, the chicken legs evolved into a plastic shop-window mannequin with the idea of placing it in different settings. By the end of 2023, the URSULA-1 project was born. In this project, I'm only interested in the legs of the beautiful URSULA (I should point out to readers that URSULA is also the name of the model). Why just the legs? In my opinion, this part of the body attracts the reader's imagination, and questions. I chose not to use the complete body to avoid the appearance of a corpse, choosing instead to play with different parts of the mannequin to make my work more enigmatic. The work is to position this enigma precisely in the photographic composition in order to create images that are surprising, innovative and aesthetically pleasing. The viewer's gaze is also very important. He must interpret these images for himself, and leave room for his imagination. To conclude this statement, I will quote Pierre Soulages:
"The work lives from the way we look at it. It is not limited either to what it is or to the person who produced it. It is also made of the person who looks at it." (translated from French).
The photographic series "Ursula" by Jean-Paul Soujol Benedetti
Your art explores the purity of lines and forms. How do you define minimalism in your art, and what does this approach allow you to express that other techniques might not?
Aesthetics has always been at the heart of my work, even more so when we do minimalism. The combination of the two allows this search for purity of lines and forms. For me, the horizon is the first sensitive element, it must be pure and clean-cut like a thread stretched in space. It is the key element of my work. It determines the boundary between the foreground and the sky. For me, its sharpness evokes infinity, but also the separation of the two worlds, which can be blurred, as in "Espace Inaugural", "Contemporary" and "Fine Art", or sharp, as in "Mer en scènes", "Carré bleu" and "Horizon". I like to be precise and rigorous in my lines and shapes, as in "San Cataldo." This minimalist and aesthetic approach is an achievement, a synthesis of my vision of the world. Digital photography gives me the precision I need for my creations.
Your photographs are known for their exceptional technical quality and precision. Can you tell us more about the techniques you use and how you prepare for creating each piece?
On the ground, after having carefully found my subject, I always place my camera on a tripod. It is somewhat like a painter's easel. The tripod is the most important additional tool. It is the creative tool. It allows me to take my long exposures, whether blurred or sharp, and also to adjust the horizontality of my camera as precisely as possible. Once the camera is in place, I will place my graduated and neutral filters according to the light and the duration that I want to apply to my exposure time. Once the photograph is taken, it remains a sketch. I always work in raw sensor format (RAW) and the camera in manual mode. It is in my office that the photographs will take on their true identity. The sketch on the ground will become a creation. Computer post-processing is a very long stage that can last several days or even weeks, depending on the complexity of what I'm looking for. The initial image goes through a workflow of three software programs. Each one brings its own set of processes and they complement each other to produce the final image, which is then saved in TIFF (uncompressed for fine art prints) and JPEG (digital printing, web) formats.
Your latest works have become more abstract and include innovative and conceptual approaches. How do you see the evolution of your style, and what drives you in this new direction?
Currently, I work on two poles: minimalist photography and conceptual photography. Minimalist photography is divided into two themes: long exposure for my essentially marine landscapes and abstract photography which is closer to contemporary painting. It is the latter that will evolve. Its resources are immense, immeasurable. The evolution will be driven by my creative desires, ongoing research, and future inspirations. My work with black and blue is evolving rapidly and I feel it has immense potential for the future. The conceptual part of my work is also full of resources, and will evolve into other projects and styles.
What can we expect from your future projects? Do you have any new series or concepts that you are currently developing and would like to share with our audience?
My future projects will increasingly be in panoramic format with a 2:1 ratio. You can already see this in "Contemporary", "Espace Inaugural" and "Le Bleu dans le Noir". This format opens up another dimension of space for me, amplifying the vision of infinity even further. URSULA will of course evolve into URSULA-2. In this new series, I will stage her bust, her arms. I also have two more distant projects (2026) in Sicily, one focusing on black and blue, the sequel to 'Contemporary', and the other more conceptual, which will take place in the meanders of IL Cretto di Buri. I also have a project to publish a monograph, to be written by Beatrice Cordaro (art historian and art curator), and a participation in the XV Biennale of Art and Design in Florence which will take place in October 2025.
"Acidulated"
Jean-Paul Soujol Benedetti is an artist who masterfully merges minimalist aesthetics with conceptual expression, creating photographs that challenge the viewer to reconsider the boundaries between art and reality. His passion for pure forms, along with the continuous evolution of his style, makes him one of the most intriguing artists of our time.
We invite all art enthusiasts to visit his exclusive virtual solo exhibition, organized in collaboration with Artistic Hub Magazine. This exhibition offers a unique opportunity to delve deeper into Soujol Benedetti's work and discover the magic of his "URSULA" and "Contemporary" series. Click the link and immerse yourself in the world of Jean-Paul Soujol Benedetti: View the exhibition.
Photos by Jean-Paul Soujol Benedetti
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