The idea of a mechanical animal suggests a kind of uneasy fusion – creatures shaped by instinct but held together by something more rigid, more imposed. It’s a title that speaks to adaptation, survival an the tension between inner life and external structure.

Louis Benoit’s drawings are immediate, instinctive and deeply personal. His animals, often hybrid, often uneasy, feel like they’ve been pulled straight from the gut. There’s no polish here, no attempt to smooth things over. Instead, Benoit leans into the rawness: the awkward limbs, the tangled expressions, the sense that something is trying to make itself understood.

There’s something of Ralph Steadman in the energy, ink that feels flung rather than placed and forms that resist containment. But where Steadman’s chaos is often satirical, Benoit’s is quieter, more internal.

His experience of autism shapes the way he sees and communicates. Rather than working through conventional language, Benoit builds a visual vocabulary that’s entirely his own.

The drawings don’t explain themselves. They don’t need to. They speak in gesture, in texture, in the space between control and release. There’s a quiet dignity to the work. it simply exists – honest, unresolved and full of life.

Gallery Opening: Saturday 28th March, 12:00 – 14:00, all welcome

When: Saturday 28th March until Sunday 31st May, weekdays 09:00 – 17:00, weekends 10:00 – 16:00

Where: Upstairs & Mosaic Galleries, D Mill 1st Floor

For more information: Contact ACDC on info@artscharitydeanclough.org

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