“I like to make the image oscillate between something recognisable and something that escapes us.”
Born in Le Locle in 1980, Benjamin Taillard, known as Tenko, lives and works in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. He graduated from the École d’arts appliqués de La Chaux-de-Fonds in 2005 and later taught contemporary painting at the Académie de Meuron in Neuchâtel from 2010 to 2019. Alongside his visual practice, Tenko is also a musician, an activity that informs his approach to rhythm, composition and counterpoint.
His paintings develop through a deliberate tension between control and release. Carefully prepared supports and backgrounds provide a precise framework within which gestures, lines, blurred forms, glazes and unexpected colour contrasts can unfold more freely. Human figures frequently appear within his compositions, yet are often fragmented or dissolved to the point where representation gives way to autonomous painterly signs. The resulting images continually shift between recognition and abstraction, allowing space, colour and light to become active elements of the composition.
Tenko’s work has been exhibited in Switzerland and internationally, including presentations in London, Guatemala City, Paris and Brussels. His work has entered public collections in the canton of Neuchâtel and the Musée des Beaux-Arts de La Chaux-de-Fonds. He received the Fondation Huguenin-Dumittan Prize in 2010 and the Jury Prize at the Biennale of the Musée des Beaux-Arts de La Chaux-de-Fonds in 2012.