FENX - Château de Bénat
Fenx
Poppies & Deserts
Exhibition Château de Bénat, Summer 2026
Yoyo Maeght exhibition curator.
From June 26 to July 10, 2026, the Château de Bénat opens its doors to the artist FENX for a unique exhibition. For two weeks, Loïc Le Floc'h takes over this exceptional estate, allowing the light and landscapes of the Var coast to nurture and guide his creation.
In the chapel of Château de Bénat, Fenx unveils two series that extend and deepen his recent research: Poppies and Californian Deserts.
A singular figure in the contemporary art scene, FENX develops an immediately recognizable painting, stretched between figuration and abstraction, between mastery of line and freedom of gesture. His universe, populated by female figures and references to a dreamed America, naturally dialogues with the wild and sunny beauty of the estate.
This exhibition is part of the Uningo Foundation's commitment to artistic creation and support for contemporary artists.
Vert morale, le rouge murmure, 2025, acrylic on canvas, 130 x 97 cm
Là où battait son cœur 3, 2026, Watercolor and oil pastel, 75 x 50 cm
Là où battait son cœur 1, 2026, Watercolor and oil pastel, 75 x 50 cm
Là où battait son cœur 2, 2026, Watercolor and oil pastel, 75 x 50 cm
There I met Margarita, 2026, Acrylic on linen canvas, 195x130 cm
Trouble like a mug shot, 2026, Acrylic on linen canvas, 130 x 97 cm
Running through the red lights, 2026 Acrylic on linen canvas 130 x 97 cm
Just another way to survive, 2023, acrylic on canvas, 195 x 130 cm
At least it's settled in a final location, 2023, acrylic on canvas, 195 x 130
- Poppies assert themselves in Fenx's work as a metaphor for life in all its complexity. A fragile, ephemeral, untameable flower, the poppy becomes a space for projection and questioning.
It is not a decorative motif, but a sensitive territory where very contemporary tensions are replayed: our relationship to living things in the age of their artificialization, the way in which commitments (ecological, social, intimate...) are built between sincerity and injunction, or the difficulty of inhabiting a world traversed by increasingly polarized positions.
The poppy precisely embodies this ridge line: between freedom and appropriation, presence and disappearance, softness and resistance. It evokes both the immediate beauty of the landscape and its fragility, reminding us how much life is today celebrated, instrumentalized and threatened.
In this perspective, Fenx's flowers become surfaces for thought where contradiction, doubt and nuance can coexist. Through their silent presence, they create a form of breathing in a context saturated with strong opinions, inviting the viewer to slow down, feel, and inhabit the image rather than consume it.
Quand j't'aurai dit tu comprendras 1, 2026 Acrylic and oil pastel 75 x 50 cm
Quand j't'aurai dit tu comprendras 2, 2026, Acrylic and oil pastel, 75 x 50 cm
Quand j't'aurai dit tu comprendras 3, 2026 Acrylic and oil pastel 75 x 50 cm
Quand j't'aurai dit tu comprendras 4, 2026, Acrylic and oil pastel, 75 x 50 cm
Quand j't'aurai dit tu comprendras 5, 2026, Acrylic and oil pastel, 75 x 50 cm
Et sous le corsage blanc, 2026 Acrylic on canvas 133 x 100 cm
- The Deserts, notably inspired by the landscapes of Palm Springs and a reimagined America, offer another form of interiority. Cacti, central figures in this series, embody a calm resistance, an adaptation to scarcity, a way of existing in aridity. They extend Fenx's reflection on the essential: reduced forms, clear lines, tensions between void and presence. In these stripped-down landscapes, light becomes structure, and silence, matter.
Dollar dollar bill yo! 3, 2025, watercolor and oil pastel, 40 x 30 cm
Dollar dollar bill yo! 1, 2025, watercolor and oil pastel, 40 x 30 cm
Kentucky Bourbon 3, 2025, watercolor and oil pastel, 40 x 30 cm
Knock-Knock, 2024, watercolor and oil pastel, 29.7 x 21 cm
Shake, shake, 2024, watercolor and oil pastel, 29.7 x 21 cm
These two collections deeply dialogue with each other.
The poppy and the cactus, seemingly opposed, share a common condition: that of life persisting in unstable environments. One emerges in open fields, the other anchors itself in drought; both embody a form of precision, an economy of means, a beauty without ostentation.
Presented in the unique space of the chapel of Château de Bénat, these works take on an almost meditative dimension.
True to his recent approach, Fenx does not seek to impose a narrative, but to create the conditions for an experience: a place where images become surfaces for projection, where the gaze completes what is deliberately left in the background.
Through this exhibition, the artist continues his exploration of a fragile balance, between figuration and abstraction, between the external world and the inner landscape. Thus, he asserts a painting that is part of the quest for a peaceful space, capable of accommodating the contradictions of the present without renouncing its contemporaneity.
Fenx's work is constructed as an inner journey, where visual memory, contemporary culture, and intimate experience meet in a pictorial language that is both rigorous and sensitive.
Coming from urban subcultures, the artist has gradually shifted his gesture towards a more refined and contemplative style, without ever losing the foundational tension between control and spontaneity.
His painting carries this duality: heir to an aesthetic born of the digital (flat painting, simplification of forms, precision of solid areas), it has gradually opened up to a more organic dimension where gesture, accident, and material disrupt the surface. From this encounter arises a singular, immediately recognizable balance, where each element seems both precisely placed and left in suspension.
Château de Bénat, Bormes-les-Mimosas Residence from June 26 to July 10, 2026