About Benoît Feron

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Benoît Feron is a Belgian photographer. He lives in Brussels.

His work is nourished by a deep love for traveling and exploring the planet, its people and its wonders. With a true appeal for the Horn of Africa, its unbeaten light, endless nature, but first of all for the great diversity and the beauty of its people, whom he immortalized in his book “Portraits of the Rift”.

The attraction for this region led him to undertake a large project on the Great Rift Valley, a place on earth dubbed “the Mankind of Humanity. It spans from Djibouti to the Northern part of Tanzania, through Ethiopia and Kenya, into some of the most remote places in East Africa. He captured innumerable images of its people and tribes. First with portraits but also with a large work on the human skin through the ritual of body painting, scarification or jewelry. In addition, the photographer captured its landscapes, lakes and volcanos with a focus on graphism and abstractions of this impressive nature.

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Besides his work on the Rift Valley, Benoît Feron is also exploring the diversity of people throughout the world where he tries to capture portraits in the same spirit as in his work on the tribes of the Rift Valley. This led him o.a. to India where he photographed very colorful celebrations like the Holi Festival or other countries in different continents like Papua New Guinea or Peru.

In addition, he also focuses on specific themes, like the abstraction in the nature in his serie “Elements, Terra Abstracta”. The latter serie led him to photograph the ice in Antarctica, Arctic, Patagonia or Iceland, as well the incredible nature of Yellowstone in the winter. He has also photographed many lakes and landscapes from the air like the soda lakes Natron and Magadi in Tanzania and Kenya or the Atacama desert in Chili.

Benoit Feron's artistic approach is strongly inspired by a search for aestheticism, for original framing and for the emotion expressed by the people photographed.This approach is criticized by some but, as said by the great photographer Sebastiao Salgado, « everywhere people are beautiful, everywhere they want to be represented with dignity ».

Behind this aesthetic approach, the goal of Benoît Feron in this work is also to increase people awareness on the extreme diversity of the people. On the identity of many groups or tribes and of their tremendous creativity, which are materialized in their clothes, their body art and their jewels. A view so much remote from the globalized world, wherein the focus has been increasingly on the West.What makes Benoît‘s work unique is the precision of his framing and his attraction for sharpness and details, found in his portraits but also in his work on skins, jewels or landscapes. His work is also mastering the sense and harmony of colours, although Benoît does not neglect black and white work from time to time.

Benoît Feron deeply cares about the future of the people, places and wildlife he has photographed, and he speaks about them with passion. He supports several humanitarian projects or charities, including En Avant les Enfants and Comequi (active in Kivu, Congo), Fondation Fournier Majorie, Foetus for life or the Association Tchendukua.

He is the author of several books and has been widely exhibited in Belgium and France. He held in 2014 a major exhibition in Brussels, «Portraits of the Rift», which was acclaimed by the press. In 2007 he won the best photography award delivered at the occasion of the exhibition l’Art pour l’Accueil held at the Xavier Hufkens gallery. In 2014, a jury chaired by Belgium Sotheby’s chairman granted the artist the photography prize in another collective exhibition in Brussels organized by Alexia Werrie Gallery.

In November 2016, Benoît was invited with 17 other photographers, including Ian Arthus-Bertrand and Sebastiao Salgado, to exhibit his work in the Festival Loving Earth organized by  Hangar H 18 in Brussels.

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