
Photo d'Eric Notarianni, 2022
Born in 1982 in Nantes, Claire Coupvent is currently living in Clichy. She has Been registered at the "maison des artistes" since 2017.
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Former student of Applied Arts school Pivault, graphic series in Nantes, She honed her technique as well as her skills in images composition there.
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She is the co-founder of the Artifact association , that today gathers 9 painters all from the Clichy Fine Arts department. Each artist proving his skills through personal exhibitions or group arts creation.
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She has chosen to express herself through water colors, charcoal and acrylic paint to satisfy her needs to touch, feel the material, its slowness and demonstrate her hand craft ability. Every tool, brush, blade, pencil and every technique enables the expression of a different emotion. as an example, acrylic paint offers the rendering of spontaneous burst of energy. Water colors brings a sensitivity, a soft touch and the mastering of randomness.
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Her works question our relation with our surrounding through trying to put nature back to the center of our lives, to focus on what's not being seen anymore. She hints at a new symbiosis between Man and his environment, his current ecological and political worries.
"I'm alive,
My eyes rise up to the sky so high,
A red dragonfly flies there"
Sôseki
A look at the artist's universe, more particularly his work around ferns
by illustrator Caroline Parent
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FILICOPHYTA
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It is thee raw material that Claire uses for her compositions.
It shifts from a natural surrounding to the workshop where everything is transformed.
It, that is Filicophyta : it is what it is called in latin, this fern that claire picks up in the forest ;
because this is there that it all begins : a generous crop of ferns.
Claire draws us to a space where Paint et Nature meet, where rhythms and colors mix to give birth to a living art form...
The fern tells its own story, through its sudden burst and secrets.
Master of ceremony, Filicophyta reveals itself under its many different apparels.
Though what truly catches us are its numerous ways to print on the sheet, to lay down on paper.
Sometimes it spreads all across the given space of the sheet.
Unveiling the grace of its shape ran aground, it lays autumn greens, reds and browns, pale yellows and deep blues...
Backbone of the painting , it spreads and stretches its structure, deploying its leaves as tiny fingers :
Through the sensitive unevenness of their outlines, the fronds gather paint and color.
Soaked in acrylic, they lay down their whole and textured prints.
Several ferns may meet in one composition. The axes of the petioles draw their furrows, the straightness of a thick stem slices from top to bottom next to a fern curvature.
The Filicophyta are parading : their leaves brush each other and entwine
In other parts, the fern unveils itself and leads us to more intimacy.
Filicophyta let us peep under leaf, at its tiny bags called sori: subtle patterns, these tiny dots are nonetheless the expression of the fern's fertility.
These sori sometimes poke through the inner hollow of a leaf, a droplet of paint made a little secret.
On other paintings, these sori appear in larger numbers. Overlaid when ferns get multiple pressing, they give birth to scores of small dots teasing the surrounding space. They are alike a dancing chaos, a picturesque sizzle that enliven the artwork.
The fern gives the beat. The gaps between branches coming and going. Meanwhile the white paper underlines the outlines of the fern and enhances its power. The overlaying of the pattern conquers the white paper, multiplying and rustling the textures. these ever varying gaps bring rhythms and variations.
At last, when the paint finally fades, the fronds come in lighter : the fern and paper chat in the subtle whisper.
Contrast in the density of textures gives Claire's art all its wit.
This manual press that Claire spins is a passage/travel for Filicophyta.
Coated in acrylic , the fern lands on a pre-painted sheet of paper. It is on this stage that Filicophyta slips across ready for action. The going under the press holds time ... Claire spins the handle, the ferns embosses in the paper, fortune may smile under the roller. The print unveils traces of random mishaps.
In the final stage, watercolors tiptoes in subtle splashes here and there, highlighting through dilution the density of the paint, enhancing the light.
Claire's work gathers dynamic forces and on the edge leaf sensitivity. It is both vital thrust - one of creation - and revelation of her inner self.
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