| parlez
vous erotic art?
an interview with benoit
prévot
by durk dehner and michael kirwan
 |
Benoit
Prévot |
Is Benoit Prévot your real name or one you
use as an erotic artist?
Benoit Prévot is my real name. I sometime think I should have
taken a pseudonym, but this is already hard to have one identity, I
keep mine. All I do is a piece of me.
Where were you born and raised?
I am born in the French Ardennes near Belgium. I lived there until I
was five year old, after that I lived in the countryside near Paris.
So during my childhood I have always been in contact with the nature.
I am living now in the town for 18 years.
Do you have other brothers and sisters and what can you tell us
about your upbringing? For example, what your parents did, if both worked,
or what trade did your father have?
I have one sister and one brother. I am the oldest. My parents are now
retired, but my father worked in a bank as a chauffeur and other things
of that kind and my mother was a nurse. I was a kind of solitary child
also because I have five years difference with my sister. I liked to
be in my world alone drawing. I’m still a little bit like that.
The solitude doesn’t scare me. I also played accordion. That was
not a very fashionable instrument at that time and I was ashamed —
even if it was me who choosed this instrument! None of my friends knew
that. I’m still playing for my pleasure.
At what age do you first remember picking up a pencil, pen or brush
and drawing?
I don’t remember when I started to draw, but my parents say that
since I have been two years old, if they wanted some quiet, they just
had to give me a pencil and that was it.
Drawing has always been a way for me to go in my fantasy world. It also
reminds me that when I was a child I used to draw stories — kind
of comic but not so elaborated — and at the same time I was talking,
making the dialogue of the characters. I was in the plot.
At that time what I liked was the fairy tales, and I remember that the
teachers always said that I had to leave the world of the princesses.
 |
How many years now have you taken your artistic work
seriously in that you have been devoting major time to working it?
I’m only starting to take it more seriously! I have the job that
makes my livelihood. I draw cartoons for TV series for children and
I’m now devoting more time for my personal work. But as far as
I remember I always have had projects like comics and illustration.
It is just that now I crystallize my fantasies on gay erotic work.
Did you have professional art schooling in your background? Were there
specific art classes or academies that you attended and, if so, what
ones were they?
I studied in the EMSAT (Municipal School of Art and Technics). It was
more orientated for to work as a graphic artist in publicity, like Roughman
for example, but with a very strong formation in drawings. It was in
Paris.
I especially loved sessions with models. I still remember and try to
think of all the advice I have had in this school.
Who have been your inspirations, your mentors, and other artists
that you have admired to assist in your own development as an artist?
Well, as my work makes references to the older time, of course I like
the old American illustrators like Norman Rockwell, J. C. Leyendecker,
Vargas or Earl Moran.
I also love the beautiful drawings of Alex Raymond.When I was younger
I also used to study very well how Stan Drake — Juliette Jones
— draws those beautiful realistic characters. I learned a lot
with his comics. I also love a French drawer of comics, Loisel. He is
one of the best for me. I especially like an artist who draws when you
can feel the lines.
Your work takes on a feeling of an earlier period in time. Is there
a specific era that you have found to be most attractive for you to
incorporate into your style?
I know that I always have liked things of the past. Old music, old movies,
old architectures, and old fashion. I like it, but I don’t know
why — it talks to me.
Perhaps there is something to see with the reincarnation? Anyway I love
glamour. American big bands that gives me goose pimples! I think that
the mid-1920s to the ’30s is my favorite period: Hurrell and Adrian.
Gary Cooper and Marlene Dietrich in “Desire”.
What is your favorite medium? What comes most easily to you: watercolor,
graphite pencil, etcetera?
My favorite medium is ink and graphite on paper, because I work a lot
in black and white and I like the firm contact of the pencil on the
paper.
I’m trying to make oil now. It is a new pleasure, but this is
not so easy to work on as a soft surface with a pencil that is soft
too.
Do you find that once you begin a drawing that you will stay on
it until it is completed, or do you go from one work to another until
each is completed?
Most of the time I stay on one drawing only. At the moment of realization,
my mind can already think of something else, but I don’t like
to disperse myself. I try not to!
What method do you use in creating the concept for your images?
Do you combine what you find in magazines with your own ideas? Do you
photograph models? Or do you rely entirely on your imagination?
When I want to do a new drawing with something fun in it, in connection
with eroticism, I start to find an idea, a situation. I think then I
make sketches and after that I start the piece. I used to draw the peoples
most of the time with my imagination. I have documentation for the backgrounds,
props, etcetera, if it is necessary, and also I have a lot of porn pictures.
But I never go from the picture to the drawing, as this is the contrary.
If I need to, I try to find a picture that helps me. But since one year
I have two models who pose for me sometimes and this is how I really
like to work.
How much time do you normally spend doing your work on an average
day or week?
It really depends. I can do a drawing in an evening. Sometimes it takes
few days, but it is very hard for me to stay too long on the same drawing.
I like to have rapidly the image of what I thought in front of me.
 |
What provides you with the drive, inspiration, and
motivation to create art? Is it your own personal satisfaction? The
admiration of your work? Or the financial rewards?
As I’m not someone very sure of myself, I like to be reassured.
The fact that I carry on is because of the feedback I have with people
who like my erotic drawings. And I can thank the Foundation for that!
But I think that I wouldn’t be able to live without drawing and
eroticism. It is so vast a world, a lot of unexpected subjects can be
erotic.
I hope that perhaps soon I will be able to live with only those drawings.
What a life to draw beautiful men all the day long!
What are some of your dreams for your work and your career that
you would be willing to share with the readers? What do you hope the
future will bring for you?
I’m now proposing a project of an erotic comic to a French publisher.
This is in my universe, but it would tell a story. At first I thought
that I wouldn’t be able to do a story with porn, I was afraid
to be bored. It is a project, so I cross my fingers. My dream is that
it works, because I’m already in the mind of the characters and
this is a real pleasure. I wouldn’t like to quit them already.
About my work, I wanted to say that I don’t really try to emulate
old illustrations. I always have a drawing that has a reference with
the past and this is probably because of the things that I like. So
it is easier for me to draw a man with brilliantine in the hair than
a “bear” or other kind of guy, I just try not to create
violence so I go in in my work the way my mood wants to.
Drawing, for me, is first of all pleasure. It can be hard to take the
idea and bring it to realization, but I have to find a lot pleasure
in the subject. I think I will always draw. I hope so!
— Part 1 of this interview was conducted by Durk
Dehner
Is there a vehicle in place, an organization or association,
available to European erotic artists that allow you guys to connect
with one another? Is there a lot of communication between erotic artists
from the different countries of the EU?
There are few possibilities to expose in France We don’t have
any organization like the Foundation. There is a man, a photograph Orion
Delain who tries to make a connection in between artists. He does each
year a book. That is called Triangul’ere in which he promotes
the gay culture and also artists. He also organized last year an exhibition
in the big fair “Rainbow attitude” that promotes the gay
way of life. I don’t really like the idea like to go to see how
gay people leave, dress, eat, where do they go for vacations, etcetera.
So I didn’t expose in that fair.
We also have the possibilities to exhibit in Gay bars. Orion maked me
know some other artist from Paris Like Kinu Sekigushi or Guy Thomas.
I met Xavier Gicquel At the Fair and he introduced me to Teddy of Paris.
Those last two one are the only one I am in contact with. There is probably
some exhibitions in Germany.
What kind of restrictions or censorship does the French government
impose on displays of erotic art?
I don’t know, I think this is more a question of who can see erotic
art. I mean in the bars they can’t put erotic pictures on the
window, but I think there is not so much censorship. We can have porn
magazines in some area of the city streets that children can see it
is at their level! But I think this is more a way of life that French
people are more conservative than we thought. We are not the best lovers
anymore I think this is the Italians now. (lol)
Of the reactions you’ve gotten from people who have seen your
artwork, what was the most pleasant, the absolute worst, and the most
unexpected?
In an exhibition in a bar in Paris the owner put of one of the drawing
(when I wasn’t there) because he thought that it was not in the
spirit of the exhibition to have a drawing of a guy with an hard on.
He told me in fact that he doesn’t like the drawings that are
too expressive in terms of sex, that I do it badly, and that there is
a lot of other artists that do it much better than me. I never exhibited
in his bar again.
The most pleasant is of course when people do appreciate the sense of
humor that I try to put in some of my drawings. I like when people watch
the drawing for a while and then smile. This is exactly what I like.
Like a lot of people I like to be loved, so I like when people tell
that they like my work. This is a cliché. It makes more sure
of oneself.
The more unexpected reaction... I don’t know. Oh yes. I remember
a friend of me, a girl who didn’t like my drawings because she
at first thought that the pecs of the guys was breasts. She thought
my men were transsexuals. She definitely never saw muscular men. She
wasn’t blond!
You have a sizable Arab population in your nation. With the current
upheaval in the Middle East do you find a heightened sense of anxiety
among the French people? And if so, do you find some of that social
tension being incorporated into your artistic expression?
Oh a politic question! Yes, I’m very concerned because I have
a lot of Jewish friends here in France and some who are doing their
Alya. I also very concerned by the way media in France presents the
things only in one way. I don’t really feel now a social tension,
but it could happen. I don’t think I can make a relation as directly
into my work.
What is sure is that more than ever the drawing is a refuge.
I don’t like the way Paris is going, people are very aggressive
in this city. A kind of bad energy. There is a lot of reason for that.
Is there any single project that you would really like tackle but
are unable to do at this time?
Really I would like to make a film. Do the script, the set, the costumes
and direct. This is a dream!
— Part 2 of this interview was conducted by Michael
Kirwan
Benoit plans to participate at the Foundation’s
Erotic Art Fair Weekend in October. In the mean time, visit his website:
manstouch.com/prevot/prevotart.html
|
|
|
|
|
untitled |
|
untitled |
|
Caberet |
|
|
|
|
|
Decollette |
|
Juillet |
|
Le dormeur du val |
|
|
|
|
|
AQTretour de bal |
|
Babies nipples |
|
untitled |
|
|
|
|
|
untitled |
|
untitled |
|
untitled |
|
|
|
|
|
untitled |
|
Big hat |
|
Stephane |
|
|
|
|
|
Rim |
|
|
|
untitled |
|
