Claire Tabure, artist. “I go through phases where I doubt myself”

One of his last exhibitions bore the title of a novel by Jean-Philippe Toussaint. Urgency and patience. Nothing better than this oxymoron can define the work of this prolific French artist living in Los Angeles since 2015, known for his group paintings, portraits and self-portraits, but also for his sculptures or tapestries… They create a creation , which he creates. with persistence and that seems to tell the same story regardless of subject or medium. Like a modern garden, it weaves the thread of life.

Madame Figaro. – You announced “I need discomfort.” This is still the case ?
Claire Stoll. –Today, I would prefer to use the word “movement” both in my personal life and in my artistic practice. I have always been afraid of immobilization, of introducing characters frozen in ice in a group. I prefer to run, to be caught in eternal motion. So, even if I am only at the beginning of this adventure, seeing my children pushes me into a form of constant adaptation that is completely compatible with my way of working. The movement clearly evokes a rhythm, a composition composed of moments of emptiness during which we await epiphany, this moment of urgency where we form a vision. I am very efficient, but also cyclothymic, it seems. like everyone else i have ups and downs but within the same week i go through phases where i doubt myself. The movement is like emptying and refilling a bucket. Painting is also a very melancholic attitude. Show moments, make them exist where photography freezes them. Painting allows us to preserve something that escapes us, a medium that offers an element of mystery. Just look Water lilies By Monet, this relationship with the surface of water, with light… These paintings offer an opportunity for reflection, to return to oneself. They represent something very enveloping.

You’ve done multiple collaborations, shoes for UGG or bag designs for Dior. How do these collaborations inform your work? ?
Every collaboration is a challenge. For me, it’s about getting out of the painting space, and therefore out of the studio. Working with artisans with different techniques gives me a different image of my work and allows me to reach a different environment. It can be more luxurious when it comes to Dior or more affordable. This association with the world of fashion also allows me to invest in both the body and the public space; those who wear the clothes or shoes spread a moving image throughout the city. Artists should not be forced to limit themselves to this white cube, but must resist other objects while remaining true to themselves. I like the limitations that making a pair of shoes or a coat puts on me; it’s a humbling experience. I was making costumes for a dancer here in Los Angeles, and this experience, which requires more of a narrative spirit, led me to create sets for operas, plays; At the moment I am making a tapestry for Aubusson. Seeing how artisans reinterpret my paintings by adding their knowledge amazes me every time. It’s a good school to skip. Along the same lines, I sent images to some weavers in Morocco asking them to make a rug. When they sent it to me, there was such a difference in colors and format compared to the original drawing, which had become more abstract, that I wanted to send this transformed image to other weavers, for example in India, to see how my table could still evolve; Like this nursery rhyme, Marabut, piece of thread, which takes the last word to start the next sentence.

In your latest pictures, the human form has disappeared. What has caused this return to landscapes? ?
My first exhibition consisted of landscapes, followed by faces. So you could say that it was Covid that made me come back to this genre. During the epidemic, I was stuck in a workshop where I can’t see the outside. The windows are a kind of Velux on the ceiling, that’s my only light, all the walls are reserved for hanging. In the workshop, I am in the landscape of the interior. So I drew this series based on reproductions I saw in catalogs. I was inspired by the paintings of Giorgio Morandi, who himself painted after Cézanne. These different views of the same place are my way of thinking about the landscape, starting from imagination and not from a specific place. My last pictures, these from the series in Bois d’Amour, are almost abstract essays designed as a sequence on the same topic. They were made with flying colors. That’s what I like, pushing the repetition in the same corpus, draining the subject and then moving on to something else. Like when I draw on fake fur. This different environment takes me to another place that is more related to sculpture, because depending on the direction in which I run the brush, the way I hold the light can be like a bas-relief.

You exhibited a bronze sculpture at the Picasso Museum. How are you interested in the transition from painting to volume? ?
These floats turned into fountains interested me in the relationship with water, liquid, movement. And because they are larger than life, making them was a very physical adventure. No more going with my little brush in front of my little picture, I had to hold hundreds of kilograms of clay that I molded around the metal frame, then cast them in bronze in the foundry. When I return to painting, I feel it as a liberation of my gesture. But this was not my first experience. In addition to an invitation from the Manufacture de Sèvres in Sèvres to reinterpret some of their iconic vases, in 2013 I created a series of earthen busts, figures taken from my paintings, on which I placed fabric collars, a bit like Edgar Degas adding a tutu to his to the picture. little dancer to bring them that extra realness like I painted these striped swimsuits Bronze floats instead of leaving the jacket bare.

In 2022, you have chosen two previous votes that symbolize the gratitude of mothers at the birth of a child. Is this a topic you will continue to explore? ?
In April, within the framework of the Venice Biennale, I am giving a speech in the Vatican Pavilion * with a project related to motherhood. I asked the inmates of the Giudecca Women’s Prison to send me photos of their children so that I could do their portraits. I will not talk about prison or crime, but about this infinite tenderness that comes from the photos of these mothers, separated from their child, from the look, from the hand caressing his hair. I put myself at their service, as if they had commissioned a portrait painter. Result: there will be twenty to twenty-five portraits on display in the women’s prison, the number will vary depending on the time my youngest, Leona Marie, born January 14th, will give me, even if I’m lucky. to be able to bring it to my workplace, workshop.

* April 20 to November 24 at the Vatican Pavilion, Venice Biennale (Italy).

Claire Tabouret is represented by three galleries: Perrotin and Almin Rech, Paris; Night Gallery, Los Angeles.