It is probably because she is FROM A FAMILY OF STONEMASON that Bénédicte Roland Clarke has always known how to “carve her way”. 

From her travels and the diversity of her artistic discoveries, she has constantly created, discovered, developed and enriched her practices by freely combining media, materials and methods. 

Born in Besançon, France, in 1963, she is 8 years old when she discovers stonemason work with her great-uncle. However, she is very far from suspecting that this experience will influence her artistic journey. 

As an adult, she travels around the world and lives in England where in 1997, she reveals herself by working alongside another artist and decides to take introductory courses to life drawing in a local school. Then, she joined the prestigious Slade Art School in London which advised her to pursue an art degree. In 2001, she entered Cheltenham Art School, where she obtained a first class bachelor’s degree in ART and received the Lynn Chadwick Bursary Award which allowed her to improve her skills. 

She then decides to go to Carrara in Italy to carve the marble which becomes her subject or predilection. 

Back in France, in Beaune, in 2005, she obtained an equivalent degree issued by the E.N.T.A commission of Dijon and began to expose her work in various places in Europe.