BENKA

About

Lives and works in Munich, Germany

BENKA’s work confronts the accelerating robotization of contemporary life, transforming the alphanumeric language of captchas into a visual arena where questions of identity, agency, and humanity take center stage. Referencing the aesthetics of Outsider Art and drawing from the impulsive vocabulary of graffiti, he creates compositions in which letters, numbers, colors, and intuitive gestures collide to form dense, expressive fields. These captchas, originally designed to distinguish human from machine, become in his hands a symbolic resistance, a reminder of the fragile boundary between organic intuition and automated systems. Through raw brushstrokes, spray paint, hand marks, and fragments extracted from destroyed canvases, BENKA embraces imperfection as a statement against the sterile precision of artificial intelligence. His paintings channel a visceral emotional charge, echoing the legacy of 1950s Informalism while proposing a new language for our digitized age: human, unfiltered, and defiantly alive.

BENKA lives and works in Munich. Born in Abu Dhabi and raised in France, he came to painting through an unconventional path, having worked previously in music and clinical psychology with a focus on smartphone addiction, a research interest that would later shape the conceptual foundation of his practice. A self-taught artist since 2015, BENKA has developed a distinctive visual universe centered on the cultural, emotional, and ethical consequences of artificial intelligence and digital surveillance. His work has been exhibited internationally at galleries and institutions across Europe and the United States, including Alzueta Gallery (Barcelona), the Michael Horbach Foundation (Cologne), Galerie Dantendorfer (Vienna), and multiple fairs and gallery exhibitions.

CV

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SOLO SHOWS
Ok Computer, Gallery B·R, Tetbury, UK (2025)
Between the Lines, Mees-Van De Wiele Galerie, Gent, Belgium (2025)
Painted with vulgarity, Galerie Dantendorfer, Vienna, Austria (2022)
Instagram me, I’m an artist, Gallery 2 move, Aalst, Belgium (2021)
Solo Presentation, Alzueta Gallery, Barcelona, Spain (2021)
Virtual Insanity, Galerie Dantendorfer, Vienna, Austria (2021)
CAPTCHA, Galerie Kaysser, Ruhpolding, Germany (2020)
Take a look at your reflection, Galerie Kaysser, Ruhpolding, Germany (2018)
You’d better shoot the robot first, Galerie Z 22, Berlin, Germany (2018)

GROUP SHOWS
Eclectic!, Mees-Van De Wiele Galerie, Gent, Belgium (2024)
WAY OUT, Grange Gallery, Cernay-les-Reims, France (2020)
Kunst Salon, Galerie Kaysser, Ruhpolding, Germany (2020)
Kunst Salon, Galerie Kaysser, Ruhpolding, Germany (2019)
Aus der Strömung 4, KUNST BLOCK BALVE, Munich, Germany (2019)
Arme Sammler, Atelierhof Kreuzberg, Berlin, Germany (2018)
Autodidakt, Kunstarkaden, Munich, Germany (2017)
Flowerpower, Galerie Kaysser, Ruhpolding, Germany (2017)
Kleben und Kleben lassen, Galerie Kaysser, Ruhpolding, Germany (2016)

BOOTHS
PARALLEL VIENNA, Galerie Dantendorfer, Vienna, Austria (2023)
ART KARSLRUHE, Galerie Z22, Karslruhe, Germany (2022)
MODERNE ART FAIR, Alzueta Gallery, Paris, France (2021)
POSITIONS ART FAIR, Galerie Z22, Berlin, Germany (2021)
ART KARSLRUHE, Galerie Z22, Karslruhe, Germany (2020)
DISCOVERY ART FAIR, Galerie Z22, Cologne, Germany (2019)
DISCOVERY ART FAIR, Galerie Z 22, Frankfurt, Germany (2018)
ART SALZBURG CONTEMPORARY, Galerie Z 22, Salzburg, Austria (2018)
MUNICH ART HOUSE, self-representation, Munich, Germany (2018)
LEIPZIG ART FAIR, self-representation, Leipzig, Germany (2017)
CONTEMPORARY ART RUHR, Galerie Z 22, Essen, Germany (2017)
ARTMUC, self-representation, Munich, Germany (2017)
DISCOVERY ART FAIR, Galerie Z 22, Berlin, Germany (2017)
DISCOVERY ART FAIR, self-representation, Cologne, Germany (2017)