She is a painter and her painting appears, as she said, “within a double fragility : that of the porous surface of the paper and the fluctuation of the inks on one hand, and that of the retreat of the brushstroke and the coming forth of the « movement of the colour” (Marc Devade) on the other hand.” Young artists are rare to quote as her this leading figure of Supports-Surface too early disappeared.

She is a painter and claims it with strenght, passion and conviction. Native of Clermont-Ferrand, born in 1986, Claire Chesnier who, besides, has worked on the theoretical concept of “revoilement (re-veiling)”, does not hide her interest for the abstract american painting.

If Ellsworth Kelly and Agnes Martin find favour with her, Blinky Palermo and Shitao, the chinese painter of the 17th century, both calligrapher and poet, too. That goes to show how much the slowness, the liquidity, the physical and meditative relation to the painting suit her. Furthermore, her paintings proceed in a long and patient elaboration, in the application of the layers and the flows of the ink. While working, Claire Chesnier always paints in music, preferably baroque ; that helps her to “grasp the pictural experience”, she adds. Her work involves a kind of geology and sedimentation which makes her investing herself a lot to better reveal the painting at its own incarnation. Winner of the Yishu 8 2013 Prize, she is actually resident of the House of Arts of Beijing. We can easily imagine that she is at ease there and that her work will get a new experience.

Philippe Piguet