In his artisan workshop in Soukra, he slowly revived the work of the Austrian painter Gustav Klimt. Whith his magician’s fingers, he gives new life to an invisible part of the history of Tunis. Benedetto slowly built his story; a long creative and creator adventure, stone by stone track it to a universe which itself still know nothing.
At the heart of unseen treasures of the earth.
Mehdi Benedetto has firmly planted his feet in the earth, the sea and the Tunisian mountains he wanders tirelessly for fun and to bring back treasures invisible to other eyes than his.
When hunting wild boar, it brings back more often stones that game. “People sometimes live on stone treasures as waste of marble. When I walk on a donkey in their area, I pick up the stones that I will work on. Thus I brought stones 12 to 15 mountains of Tunisia. ”
Other times, it is the fisherman who tickles his soul stone worker. And he forgets to bring the fish nuggets that will dance in his work.
“To achieve” La Diva “I used a stone caught in 34 meters deep.” And magic, a little heavy dancer, seems slight, slight in her tutu of sea stones and ballerinas in mountain rocks.
Other Life Bourguiba Avenue
Mehdi Benedetto has in him the gift to imagine and see the invisible, beyond appearances and beyond time. When he learned they were preparing a new stone carpet Avenue Bourguiba, he has listened to his instinct.
“I bought Bourguiba Avenue. In any case, we would throw stones. ” With that touch of madness that belongs only to artists, Benedetto chartered 251 trucks. A fortune … which was worthless, except for him. “I bought especially the history of the Avenue Bourguiba. The passage of women and men, personalities, guests … ”
Today the stones of the Avenue Bourguiba is sleeping in a field guarded by chickens and goats … Until the artist comes to awaken them.
These days, he just put his nose in his treasures. It puts a little saliva on his finger and caress the stone to bring out the color. “It’s when they are wet that they are revealed,” says the artist. So, it starts with a new creation which he still knows nothing, because “discovery is when the stone is cut.” And one by one, the dead stones but full of sips of history Avenue Bourguiba  found a new life. “None of these stones out of here, if it has not worked. And now Avenue Bourguiba, is here, it’s here, “he said, showing some of his creations.
The merger Klimt / Benedetto
In the mid 2000s, Mehdi Benedetto realizes parts of the fall showcase of Hermès stores in Paris and a mansion in Monaco. The encounter with the work of Gustav Klimt is then a decisive turn in its evolution.
“One day, I discovered the” Portrait of a Lady “painted by Klimt and I told myself that if I could reproduce this work, I’d be able to do everything.”
Benedetto and got to work. It focused mainly on the face, the movement of the hair; the rendering of the dress fabric. Two turquoise sparked the color and expression of the eyes …. And the result has inspired him to continue.
Today, Mehdi Benedetto has fourteen replicas of paintings of the symbolist artist. This control shadows, shapes, reliefs. It combines, mixes, separates … thousands and thousands of small stones taken from the Tunisian land that he knows as a person.
A.T.
To know more :
Mehdi Benedetto
Phone : (+216) 24 552 991
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