Charles-Henry Bédué

Charles-Henry works in the field of reportage photography but has developed a strong esthetic that gives a feeling of staging, which is never the case.
He extracts from a diligent and pure observation of his daily life, symbolic images located on the border of figurative and abstract.
Introspection, reading, travel; the appearances, what it says, what it hides; the question of border, of the norm, of the golden mean, orientate his life and his art since the beginning in Paris in 2003, where he received a master degree from the school of art ESAG Penninghen.
After 7 years based in Shanghai and Beijing where he has developed his art in a total sense of freedom, he came back to Paris for major collaboration with Opera de Paris, worked with newspaper and magazines, and had exhibited his work in Europe.
His first solo exhibition in the museum of photography of Helsinki in 2016 is entitled Virtuous Circle, because, in his artistic process, collecting images, meditating on them, is not an end in itself but a way to the unit with oneself, then to unite with others by transmitting them.
When the covid crisis happened, he was in Los Angeles working on a new series, considering developing new projects in the US for the next years.

La Maison du Bonheur (The House of Happiness)

Since the beginning of his work as a photographer, Bedue has always focussed on his origin, his family, and his relatives.
Through the years and travels, his work about the theme of family was expanded to the people he met.
This series became a field of exploration full of recurrent and universal symbols as Child, Food, Animals, and the mixed feeling that usually bound the members.
In 2020, because of the covid and the closure of borders with the US, he had spent months editing his images to make a large book, very immersive and colorful.
The 20 layouts presented here are a selection of this project.

To view more of Charles-Henry Bédué’s work please visit their website.