Charles-Henry work in the field of reportage photography, but has develop a strong esthetic who gives a feeling of staging, which is never the case. He extract 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 norm, of 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 develop his art in a total sense of freedom, he came back in Paris for major collaboration with Opera de Paris, worked with news paper and magazines, and had exhibit his work in Europe.
His first solo exhibition in the museum of photography of Helsinki in 2016 was entitle Virtuous Circle, because, in his artistic process, collecting images, meditating on them, is not an end in itself but a way to unit with oneself, then to unite with others by transmitting them. When covid crisis happened, he was in Los Angeles working on a new series, considering developing new projects in the US for the next years.
Naissance d’un mouvement (First Move)
From November 2020 to may 2021, during the lockdown in the old family house that inspired Charles-Henry most of his work, Bédué spent months to collect, sort, scan, thousand and thousand of pictures issue from the unedited archives of his parents and grand parents, who was store in the attic.
He has also sorted and scanned all his work from the Chinese period (2007-2014). During his expatriation, at 10 000 km from his relatives, he turned his look into the unknown, avoiding principaly people, to focus on objective photography. Looking for life in abstract compositions, rough materials, as alchemist used to look for their soul in the exterior matter of the world.
Now, with the distance on both his family story and past life in China where he was born again, this time as photographer, Bedue decides to put in parallel these
pictures issue from very different context to create a dialog between opposites.
To view more of Charles-Henry Bédué’s work please visit their website.