Claire Chesnier's exhibition at the CCC Olivier Debré in Tours (until February 1) is much more than an exhibition. It is a plunge, an immersion, a meditation, a prayer for some, ecstasy for others. Faced with these works of color and light, it is an opportunity to be fascinated, carried away, floating in these skies and landscapes. You step right into these vibrant, life-size paintings, blending into them, letting yourself be engulfed by them, in an experience that is as sensual and physical as it is visual and aesthetic. The supposed horizon line, always uncertain, separating “earth” from “sky,” is rendered in waves, tree silhouettes, and lace, giving way to imperceptible gradations and constant transitions.

Claire Chesnier follows in the footsteps of painters who have transformed landscapes into luminous, misty, and indecisive quasi-abstract compositions: Turner, of course, Constable, and Ruisdael, but also Biberstein (and, in photography, Rita Magalhães). Except that Claire Chesnier is not a painter, she does not claim to reproduce in her own way the light and colors of the world before her eyes, but uses ink and pigments infused on watery paper and represents nothing but her own inner vision of the world.

In a small room, a play of light projected onto one of her paintings (Le Ciel est comble, et s'ouvre encore) subtly modifies it, lightening it then darkening it: the “earth” becomes darker, the “sky” lighter, then everything changes. A whole day is condensed into twelve minutes, and the viewer loses all sense of reference.

Blog Lunettes Rouges, October 2025