Beach Art: Jben's gigantic sand drawings made with just two rakes and a rope

    Beach Art: Jben's gigantic sand drawings made with just two rakes and a rope

    Jehan-Benjamin (aka Jben) is a French artist who decorates beaches with beautiful designs using a rake.

    The beach is his "canvas", the rake his brush. His giant works are ephemeral and visible only from drones. He is the French artist Jehan-Benjamin (aka Jben), one of the most representative exponents of the so-called beach art that expresses his creativity mainly on the coasts of Charente-Maritime, although he has also made works in Portugal, Holland, Morocco, England and the United States for a total of 200 works.





    Jben's passion emerged after the discovery of the masterpieces of Andrés Amador, an American artist famous for his large-scale drawings made on the sand of the beaches.

    The love for aerial photography led Jehan-Benjamin to immortalize his creations and the creative process of each work with a drone that becomes the only tool capable of restoring the immensity and beauty of his "paintings". Due to the enormous size of the drawings and their temporary nature, taking aerial images is the only way to contemplate the wonderful final result for a long time.

    As Jehan-Benjamin himself revealed, it is not always easy to find a place where the environmental conditions are optimal: the wind moves the sand, the garbage thrown by the bathers does not allow to find a clean enough space to draw or the footprints ruin the landscape. In particular, the wind is one of the most unpredictable and sudden factors that influence JBen's work, forced on several occasions to leave the beach without finishing the works.

    His favorite place of work is La Grande Côte beach in Charente-Maritime, where he can take up to four hours a day to create a single work, even though he starts drawing two hours before the tide goes completely out.

    The tools that the French artist uses to create his masterpieces are two rakes and a rope of about 40 meters, essential for tracing circles of different diameters, essential geometric figures from which to start as a working base. His masterpieces can reach 60 meters in diameter, although he has exceptionally made pieces over 100 meters long. For more complex works, the artist makes a preliminary sketch on paper, while at other times he lets himself be taken by inspiration, drawing freely.



    Jben accepts commissions from individuals, associations or companies, but the most significant works are those in which he wants to launch social and solidarity messages, such as the latest masterpiece that has made headlines on the beach de Royan in favor of fires in Australia:

    Do you know beach art?
    The artist J Ben creates a fresco on the beach of Royan. Report 19 p.m. @F3PoitouChtes pic.twitter.com/gT03l0RnTI

    – Valérie Prétot (@F3valeriepretot) January 12, 2020

    Sometimes he also collaborates with schools, to teach children how to draw on the beach using a simple rake.


    Read also:


    • Land Art: the territory instead of the canvas
    • Land Art: when nature becomes art for a moment
    • Snow Art: Simon Beck's incredible snow drawings
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