BENOIT HAVARD

Born in 1981 in Orléans, France, Benoît Havard demonstrated an early passion for drawing and painting. At the age of six, he began his artistic journey, guided by a mother who introduced him to the world of galleries and museums. These formative experiences sparked his fascination for dynamic, expressive works, particularly those of French landscape painter Michel Jouenne.
In 1998, Havard enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts in Cherbourg, where he studied under Lejeune and Valadié. By the age of 19, he had fully committed himself to painting. He initially explored watercolor during travels in Morocco, before turning to oil painting with a palette knife as his preferred medium.
Today, Benoît Havard is acclaimed for his dreamlike, luminous urban landscapes—compositions that radiate warmth, energy, and poetic intensity. Drawing inspiration from his travels, he begins by photographing real city scenes, then transforms them through his own emotional lens.
“The idea is to bring the subject into my own world,” he explains. Rather than focusing on intricate detail, his approach centers on light and contrast. His spontaneous compositions, crafted with layers of transparency, streaks, and fades, achieve a dynamic texture and rhythm. Through bold palette knife strokes, cities like New York, London, and Paris appear in their purest essence, bordering on abstraction through their vibrant color harmonies—from fiery warmth to cool blue-grays.
Havard begins each painting by laying down the background, gradually allowing urban silhouettes—figures, cars, and daily life scenes—to emerge. Only in the final stages does he refine the details, unveiling a vibrant urban narrative shaped by light and movement.
Since 2004, his works have been exhibited in numerous galleries across France and internationally. He has been honored as a guest artist at several exhibitions, and his paintings