Born 1967 in USA.
Charles Benefiel grew up between Santa Monica and Los Angeles. As a teenager, he had problems with alcohol and drugs. He became homeless, squatting abandoned houses on the road from Los Angeles to Seattle. After six years of struggle he managed to combat his addictions.
Since his childhood he has taken refuge in art, producing minute drawings on paper of the size of a postage stamp. Over time his drawings have become larger and even more detailed ; sometimes it takes him several months to complete a work. In 1993, Benefiel moved to the mountains of New Mexico, where he lives in a little room and continues his work.
The numbers that appear in his drawings reflect his conviction that our identities are reduced to a few numbers, a kind of genetic code. Many of his works depict old dolls that he inherited from his grandmother. The strangeness of most of his images is the consequence of a particular creative process : he draws by multiplying ink dots, which end up resembling photographic grain. He transforms surfaces, giving them the texture of old papers or parchment.